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What a story

Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
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Location
Yuma, AZ
First Name
Adam
Last Name
McCreight
It started off as a quick trip to show Jim (getbent) some trails
All I can remember is
Motorcycling
Jeeping
Winching
Wenching

And a cop car.

There are even pictures of some of it.

I now have been up for 25 hours, time for bed.
 
Would those pictures be mug shots? Do the cops give you copies if you have a USB thumb drive? That would be very nice of them!
 
Would this post be from the 1st time of out the desert or the 2nd.

Terra, Adam's wife is in town for training. After we went out for some Thai, we stop back at the hosue and were discussing everything from my future wedding to many different motorcycle in our futures. About 930 (our time) Terra's phone rings. She smiles and says it's Adam(special ring tone). All I hear is really, really, really. What happened to your bike. Get Bent is in the desert by himself. It took you an hour on his bike just to get back to the house. Wow it will take a lot longer going back in the Jeep. end of story ??


Tell us more


Mike Green
 
I am awake. Nothing like 3.5 hours sleep to make you feel like a million bucks.

Since the camera has few pictures and non at the beginning, I shall write. I am sorry for this.

It is 5 pm on Tuesday, I ask GetBent if he wants to go riding, he pauses then says “sure, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

The dirt starts 10 miles from the house, and then 5 miles of dirt road gets you to a jeep trail. I have taken this in the jeep, then on bikes by myself, with Terra, and now with Jim. It is rocky, but a good warm up for things to come. At some point I tell Jim, if anything happens, keep on making left hand turns and you will get out of here. It is 5-7 mile loop with many trails off of it. At the halfway point we decide to go to some water falls, but unlike PhotoJoJo’s rendition, there isn’t any water anywhere in S. AZ. We do not get very far when it is turn around time by the watch, 7ish. We are coming back up the trail at a good clip and abra kadabra, my front end is no longer going forward, but sideways. Jim had a while to check out the scene and things it was just a pile of sand in a curve and a bad placed rock. I landed exceptionally well, stand back up, go to the bike that is still running, but gas is spuing, hold in the clutch and lift. Antifreeze hits me square in the face. Good thing the goggles and helmet were there. Kill the bike, and that is when Jim offers up this XR650 to me to get the jeep. Great friend!

All I gotta say is the XR was very smooth, my WR is sensitive to on/off inputs from the throttle, his was not. His is also stock sprung, so it absorbed all rocks. I did stall once, I sware it was a snake on the trail, roots are deciving. Good thing it wasn’t a snake, I tried to go around it again, front end again hit the 8” pile of sand on the side and washed out. I would have fallen on said snake. Got back up, started and went home. It took me 30 minutes or so to get home and get the jeep. Get all the supplies, where is that mag light? Ahh, forget it, Jim is waiting.

I have to go to work; I am now a little late…
 
Good that you are ok but that only cover the motorcycling and hints at the Jeeping but doesn't cover at all the actual Jeeping, Winching, Wenching or the cops! So it seems that quite a bit is missing...
 
When people have off-road vehicles they accessories them. In the beginning I made some beginner mistakes, but I soon figured out what I wanted this jeep to be and followed that path. One of the first things I bought were these cool 135w fog/running lights. Well, in N or E Texas you are either on a road with other traffic or you are on a rocky jeep trail and a pencil beam light doesn’t do too much good. Diffused “fog” lights work best.

I am driving up the dirt road with switchbacks and all, trying to make it back to GetBent in less than 45 minutes, 1 hour total would be tough, but in the dark with a broken bike, in a place you really do not understand yet, would be antagonizing. It is great; the 135w bulbs are making daylight out of the black hole that surrounds us. I see rabbits and other varmint, I am thinking I should have brought those other two beers in the fridge, and we could have sat up here afterwards and drink a cold one looking out at the city.

(see picture #1)
I have a hard time debating; enter at the exit, or the entrance. This is mistake 2, I choose the exit, but GetBent knew his way to back track, not forward. We should have discussed this before splitting up.

I drive from the entrance to the exit, 5 or so miles away, hang a right and start up the trail. I decide to stay in 2Hi to make up some time, and I was flying. The trail was a little rough but not bad. I have to be there, I have been going for long enough, it is 9:30, and it has been dark for a while. I start up a hill and tick, tick, tick, boom. The drive shaft explodes. I roll back to flat ground, pull out the blanket/ carpet, tool bag and head lamp in the tool bag and go to work. I have the drive shaft out in minutes, tossed in the back, lock the front hubs and I back up for some momentum and go. The jeep is pointing straight up zigging left and right, but no forward momentum.
(See picture #2)


Interestingly enough, GetBent, 2 hills away sees the aliens landing and thinks it is me. Then they go away and come back. Then nothing. So he guesses it is drug runners or something similar this close to border and decides he needs to start making his way home. It is now 10pm. I told you I pulled that DS quickly. I am going to get GetBent and come back; we will drive the jeep backwards out of here! I have the head lamp, phone, camel bac with ½ gallon of water, Dirt bike jersey, pants and boots. That is about it. About 5 minutes into my walk the led head lamp goes to zero, I pull out the phone and use the light for the camera. He has to be right around the corner, let’s get out of here. One bad thing about those 135w lights, or the rock lights in the previous picture. I now have no night vision and can imagine walking over rattle snakes and such. But, I have on MX boots, not the best hiking boots, but they should keep off a snake bite.

Over a few hills the cell phone light goes out and it starts ringing. It is my wife. I had called her when I was driving up to the trail head on the jeep, and she was calling back. I tell her the news that it is gone from bad to worse. 2 dead vehicles. She is in Texas right now, and can only come up with; you have the best adventures without me. Interestingly enough while on the phone with her and no lights, my night vision comes in. Hmm, keep one eye closed if you use a light so you have night vision. I remember that from a Hamburger hill. I shall do this! So, I am walking and talking. Nothing like being stuck in the middle on nowhere, but yet you can talk on the phone. Crazy I tell you.

Soon I get off the phone, I hear a rattler. Nope, with one ear hearing outside and one hearing the phone, a locus sounded bad and low, instead of harmless and in a tree. I call her back and say that I need to have all of my limited senses, it is late, go to sleep (2 hour time difference). I walk and walk, I get to an intersection that I remember, and this was ½ mile back, I have walked past the site of the accident. I thought I had heard motor sounds. I am sure Jim is trying to ride it out, but has to stop to let it cool. This whole time I had been shouting “Jim” but no response. If he has his helmet on, and bike sometimes running, he is never going to hear me. Plus the desert wind is blowing at 30mph. I turn around and hike out, and about a half mile later I see the sign that takes you from the main trail to this one. I completely missed it going the other way due to a tree. It is amazing that I cannot really 4 feet away. Now my phone is getting low on battery and I only use the light to go up hill since that is where most of the rocks are. Jim should be long gone by now. I am going to relax, enjoy the stars, and try to not come into contact with any illegals, snakes or pretty much anything else. The stars are great, the moon has not come out yet, and the pitch dark made for some great stars. I decide to start slowing down on the water consumption just incase I have to hike out of here. Once in a while I can see the city and get cell reception, so I use that to line up the stars to get my bearings. It is around 11:30, I wish I would have been keeping track of time so I could know when I was coming up on the jeep. (Mistake 3)
 

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Dude... I am glad you weren't with us on our adventure in the desert :-P :lol2: I don't think I could have taken so much misadventure on one trip :trust:
 
Dude... I am glad you weren't with us on our adventure in the desert :-P :lol2: I don't think I could have taken so much misadventure on one trip :trust:

I think Jim is at home dieing right now. The day he drove out here he was up 36+ hours. Slept that night and this is the next day.

I think your adventure is much worse just because at any given time I could have bonzied through the brush, gone to the top of a hill and got cell reception.
 
All I can remember is
Motorcycling
Jeeping
Winching
Wenching

And a cop car.

Yeah, the suspense is killing me. I want to find out if the last two are intertwined...:ponder:
I always thought this was a rated-PG site.;-)
 
Truthfully the only female we saw was walking down the road near my house. No real wenching, I have a shirt that says wheeling winching wenching, another day in paradise....Die Trying. Right now I feel that Die trying is my motto:doh:
 
Also, I got home tonight around 6pm and Jim was passed out still. He says he didn't sleep all day, but never did tell me what he did. I am usually the one that gets sevierly dehydrated, nice to be able to function after such an event.
 
Okay, they just released me! So, now I get to tell my side of the story. Remember I just arrived in Tucson from a 36hr day and then one nights sleep. Tuesday at about 6pm Firstman(Adam) and I decide to take a 2hr ride up Reddington. Sounds like fun to me, so off we go. We get about an hour out and decide to turn around. Let me add, we are about 5miles away from any road. Nasty rocks, loose deep sand, big 1-3ft ledges, lots of cactus and very very dry. Alittle after 7pm Adam's bike washes out on a burm and smacks the radiator on a big rock. I am starring at him wondering why his bike is blowing steam from the radiator.....then it hit me, dang it. Since Adam had been on the trail before, I offer up my bike so he could go to the house and get the Jeep to pick me and his bike up. He is off like a bat out of... I decide to start pushing the bike to the top of a hill so I could see him when he comes back. It gets dark really quick in the desert. Within minutes I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I wait patiently replaying "The Hills Have Eyes" through my head. I start thinking about what animals may be lurking in the night, since it is too hot to hunt during the day. I decide to put all my gear back on ie. body armor, gloves, helmet, camelpack. I figured the more protection I have on the more likely I am to survive some type of attack. I felt incase I was attacked the helmet would atleast protect my face so I could later be identified( I am not even joking about this). The only protection I had was my Kershaw knife. I was sitting on the bike with feet on pegs to prevent any animal from crawling up my legs or biting me. You could not see your own feet in the dark. What seemed like about two hours, I really began to worry. I started wondering if Adam if it made it back to the house or if he wrecked again, rode off the side of the mountain or was shot by drug runners. I saw lights about a mile away coming over the toop of a mountain, on and off for about 10 minutes, then nothing. I figured it could be drug runners and so I decided to get the heck out of dodge. I new there was still coolant in the bike so I fired it up and took off. The WR has some pretty weak lights, but who cares, I could see about 20ft in front of me and that was all I needed. I spent about the next hour and a half getting off the side trail. I would ride still the radiator began to spew then shut it off and wait 10 minutes, then do it again. I knew as long as it had fluid it would be okay. Picking lines in the rock was not an option. I knew I was going to have to go back up the big drops we hit on the way in. It is amazing what you can climb when you have no choice( not making up was not an option). I finally get back to the mountain road. Now I am only about 8 miles from a pavement. I decide to push the rest of the way, so not to damage the bike. Let me say, I am glad I was pushing a WR instead of an XRR. There were quite a few steep hills to push up and then coast down the other side. About the last 3 miles are all down hill with 180 switchbacks. I had to ride the brakes because I had no lights. A car was coming up the hill so I stopped and flagged them down. I told them my situation and told them to look for a yellow jeep (Adam) and let him know I was okay. They gave me a liter of water and tod me it was just a little past 11 o'clock. I kept going down till I hit the pavement. Then I started pushing. When I finally reached a street light I was done. I parked the bike on the side of the road under the light and hopped up on a big breaker box and rested. About 10 minutes later, I see 2 cop cars fly by. I jump down and run to the street. The second one bust a u-turn and came back to me, then the other sheriff and an ambulance. They told me they received a 911 call for a missing down biker. I told them that was me. I don't think they beleived me at first. They could not believe that I had pushed the bike all the way to where I was. They wanted to take me to the hospital for dehydration. I didn't realize till they pointed it out how bad I was shaking. So the gave me a bunch of water and stayed with me to figure out what to do. They offered me a ride to the house, but I had no key and reminded them that my friend that called 911 was still up there somewhere. One sheriff headed up the mountain to look for Adam. The ambulance set with me a bit and made sure I was okay, then left. I jumped back on the breaker box and waited to see if they could find Adam. Here comes the sheriff. I goto the car and see Adam in the back......not good! That meant either he never made it off the mountain with my bike or his jeep broke. Well, it was the later. Apparantly, it was his lights that I saw bouncing over the top of the hill. Then he broke. Man I was happy to see him. The officer give me a ride to the house to get the truck and trailer, Adam stayed with the WR. On the way home the cop is telling me about all the dangers in the mountains. He said just the other day they spotted a large mountain lion walking the road right where we were. Also, wild dogs, snake, and a lot of drug runners in them hills. He said it was smart to keep all my gear on since lions go for the neck it would have made the attack more difficult. By the time he was done talking, it was just sinking in how dangerous the desert is and how lucky I was to have gotten out of there alive. It really could have been much worse. WEll, he dropped me off, I get the truck and trailer and go get Adam and the WR. We load and go back to the house to get Tera's Jeep CJ. We head back to where Adams TJ was and strap up. Also, we fixed a fuel leak on Tera's jeep. I start pulling Adam out and notice now the sunrise and it is only 4:15 in the morning...WOW!! It was a long slow haul off the mountiain. Adam only had one control arm holding the rear axle on. I havn't told Tera yet, but I blew the driver side hub on here jeep. sorry :(. We finally make it home at 6am. Adam is extremely soar, my head is killing me. We drink up a gallon of water and hit the sack. I have been up and down all day drinking water taking tylenol. The headache finally, went away a few hours ago. Now, I am ready to go back to bed :) In a related story. tonight Adam and I went for dinner in Tera's jeep. On the way back it ran out of gas. Yep, Adam left me with it to go get gas!! hehe. Does anyone see a trend here. We are home and safe.
 
When people have off-road vehicles they accessories them. In the beginning I made some beginner mistakes, but I soon figured out what I wanted this jeep to be and followed that path. One of the first things I bought were these cool 135w fog/running lights. Well, in N or E Texas you are either on a road with other traffic or you are on a rocky jeep trail and a pencil beam light doesn’t do too much good. Diffused “fog” lights work best.

I am driving up the dirt road with switchbacks and all, trying to make it back to GetBent in less than 45 minutes, 1 hour total would be tough, but in the dark with a broken bike, in a place you really do not understand yet, would be antagonizing. It is great; the 135w bulbs are making daylight out of the black hole that surrounds us. I see rabbits and other varmint, I am thinking I should have brought those other two beers in the fridge, and we could have sat up here afterwards and drink a cold one looking out at the city.
Picture

I have a hard time debating; enter at the exit, or the entrance. This is mistake 2, I choose the exit, but GetBent knew his way to back track, not forward. We should have discussed this before splitting up.

I drive from the entrance to the exit, 5 or so miles away, hang a right and start up the trail. I decide to stay in 2Hi to make up some time, and I was flying. The trail was a little rough but not bad. I have to be there, I have been going for long enough, it is 9:30, and it has been dark for a while. I start up a hill and tick, tick, tick, boom. The drive shaft explodes. I roll back to flat ground, pull out the blanket/ carpet, tool bag and head lamp in the tool bag and go to work. I have the drive shaft out in minutes, tossed in the back, lock the front hubs and I back up for some momentum and go. The jeep is pointing straight up zigging left and right, but no forward momentum.
Picture

Interestingly enough, GetBent, 2 hills away sees the aliens landing and thinks it is me. Then they go away and come back. Then nothing. So he guesses it is drug runners or something similar this close to border and decides he needs to start making his way home. It is now 10pm. I told you I pulled that DS quickly. I am going to get GetBent and come back; we will drive the jeep backwards out of here! I have the head lamp, phone, camel bac with ½ gallon of water, Dirt bike jersey, pants and boots. That is about it. About 5 minutes into my walk the led head lamp goes to zero, I pull out the phone and use the light for the camera. He has to be right around the corner, let’s get out of here. One bad thing about those 135w lights, or the rock lights in the previous picture. I now have no night vision and can imagine walking over rattle snakes and such. But, I have on MX boots, not the best hiking boots, but they should keep off a snake bite.

Over a few hills the cell phone light goes out and it starts ringing. It is my wife. I had called her when I was driving up to the trail head on the jeep, and she was calling back. I tell her the news that it is gone from bad to worse. 2 dead vehicles. She is in Texas right now, and can only come up with; you have the best adventures without me. Interestingly enough while on the phone with her and no lights, my night vision comes in. Hmm, keep one eye closed if you use a light so you have night vision. I remember that from a Hamburger hill. I shall do this! So, I am walking and talking. Nothing like being stuck in the middle on nowhere, but yet you can talk on the phone. Crazy I tell you.

Soon I get off the phone, I hear a rattler. Nope, with one ear hearing outside and one hearing the phone, a locus sounded bad and low, instead of harmless and in a tree. I call her back and say that I need to have all of my limited senses, it is late, go to sleep (2 hour time difference). I walk and walk, I get to an intersection that I remember, and this was ½ mile back, I have walked past the site of the accident. I thought I had heard motor sounds. I am sure Jim is trying to ride it out, but has to stop to let it cool. This whole time I had been shouting “Jim” but no response. If he has his helmet on, and bike sometimes running, he is never going to hear me. Plus the desert wind is blowing at 30mph. I turn around and hike out, and about a half mile later I see the sign that takes you from the main trail to this one. I completely missed it going the other way due to a tree. It is amazing that I cannot really 4 feet away. Now my phone is getting low on battery and I only use the light to go up hill since that is where most of the rocks are. Jim should be long gone by now. I am going to relax, enjoy the stars, and try to not come into contact with any illegals, snakes or pretty much anything else. The stars are great, the moon has not come out yet, and the pitch dark made for some great stars. I decide to start slowing down on the water consumption just incase I have to hike out of here. Once in a while I can see the city and get cell reception, so I use that to line up the stars to get my bearings. It is around 11:30, I wish I would have been keeping track of time so I could know when I was coming up on the jeep. (Mistake 3)
 
Adam must still be delirious... he just reposted the same thing again :rofl:

Man, that is a funny story! You must be in seriously good shape to push a bike that far... :brainsnap They would have found me dead somewhere on one of the uphill pushes... :doh:
 
Adam must still be delirious... he just reposted the same thing again :rofl:
I was wondering... :huh2: I thought I was going a little looney.

Man, that is a funny story! You must be in seriously good shape to push a bike that far... :brainsnap They would have found me dead somewhere on one of the uphill pushes... :doh:
He wasn't pushing a loaded KLR... or an unloaded one for that matter :shock:
 
I think this Title should be changed to

2 Texas boys in Arizona or something like that.

Get that stuff fixed so none of this happens when I come visit. On another note I am glad you guys are OK

Mike Green
 
Part 3

Yeah, I was a little tired last night. Sorry.

This part is a rambled, it was a bit of a blur, Hours seemed like minutes:
I gain cell reception again and call Terra. It is around 1 am you/her time. 11ish here. I know I have missed the jeep somehow. When I was pulling the drive shaft(DS), there was 6” of trail on either side of me before it went into the grass and beyond. How could I have missed the jeep? Did I forget to put it in gear and use the parking brake and now it is down the hill never to be seen again? No, I lowered it to flat ground to pull the DS. Did illegals get it going? No, it would barely move under my expertise. Where is the jeep? Soon after I am out of cell range so I am now cut off from the world. It will be a long haul, but I am getting out of here. I do not turn around, I could go in circles and get lost, just keep on going, I had the possibility of not getting the jeep to move on its own power and having to hike out anyway. I keep on walking and come to some land marks that I saw during the drive in and say, yup, I lost Jim, and I lost the Jeep. How do you loose a yellow jeep that was in the middle of the road! I am trying to make sure I say on the road, my feet are dragging a little, blisters are forming and I am starting to trip on rocks. I stop for a minute. It is so quite and beautiful. Yet, the next corner will bring wind, and animals. Both Jim and I heard barking; maybe it was the chipmunks, maybe the coyotes. Why can I not find that jeep and sit down? Just rest for a minute, my feet are burning from the boots rubbing each and every step.

I keep on going and end up at the main dirt road, turn left and start the next leg of the journey. By now I have been checking my watch and drinking a sip of water every 15 minutes. I am at mile marker 11, asphalt starts at 3, it is past midnight. Walking down the road was nice, big wide road no real rocks, but I was in a valley and it was dark. Around 12:30 the moon starts to glow behind the mountains. By 1am the moon is out and I have enough light that shadows are being cast. I love the human imagination. I saw snakes out of everything there. I didn’t have an irrational fear of them before, but I could see tripping, falling face forward into a rattler.

This whole time I have the head lamp in my left hand and cell phone in right. The battery in the cell is getting close to dead, so I do not have any light except stars and the moon when it isn’t behind the next mountain. I cannot imagine why my hands are not tired from holding on to these two things for so long, but they are not. Turns out they were, but it wasn’t until later that my body told me this. My feet are past bad I stop every 20 to 30 minutes to rest for 30 second and they just burn. At mile marker 8 I can see town, but no cell reception. I remember hearing that if you dial 911 it will try other towers, so I do it. I finally get a dispatcher who transfers me to the sheriff’s department. The dispatcher there asks what my issue is.
I say that I am a stranded motorist, I was on a trail off of Reddington road and I am currently at mile marker 8, is there anyway someone can pick me up? She then asks me to call a wrecker. I say ma’m, I wrecked a dirt bike earlier, made it to town on my friends bike and was going back for him when my vehicle died. She then says, you were involved in an accident that is different and starts to take my info. I tell her that my friend was still out there, but I went to look for him and couldn’t find him. Then the phone goes out of signal. Cingular, the call doesn’t drop, it just becomes quiet. I just keep on walking.
This whole time I can hear gun shots (on this road is an area to shoot), I know that is around mile marker 6. If I can get there, they can take me home. Or just let me rest on their trunk or something. Well, when I finally get the bend where the range is, I see tail lights light up and the cars drive away. So close! I couldn’t walk any faster, heck I could barely walk at all; the blisters surely had to be bringing blood by now! I just wanted to take off my shoes and walk on the sandy soil but I knew that would lead to something else, and this, I could handle. My pace had dropped to about a 20 minute mile by this time. Pretty slow, but it was as fast as I could go. I kind of give up, look down and have cell signal. Call up 911 and they say the officers should be there any minute.

10 minutes later a car comes down the road. The police officer lets me in, and he is kinda cold. But soon he warms up. I find out that Jim is at the bottom of the mountain, and that he rode the bike down. I didn’t know if the motor was fried or not, but I really didn’t care. He was alive and hopefully well. Actually he was well on black top, the boy had traveled. I was dreaming about coasting down some of the hills that I had to walk, but I wouldn’t have wanted to push that bike up them.

The cop takes Jim home to get his truck and trailer, it is only 5 or so miles away, I stay with the bike, there is street light there, it is a school cross walk. This is the only light on this road. I put the back pack down look for scorpions, put my head on the back pack and fall right a sleep. This is the first time in about 4 hours that I could get off my feet. Jim came back we loaded the bike and headed to the house.

We were on a mission, find the jeep.
The next section will wrap it up. I know this is long winded, but it was a long, long night.
There will be pictures in the next episode. Sorry, I left the camera in the jeep when I went on my walkabout.
 
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