I originally intended for this to be a way for me to vent about the events I was involved with last night, but now I realize that this thread would be a good opportunity for anyone interested to share stories of their worst Jeep or off-road experiences. My worst Jeep tale happened just last night...

It all started around 11:00 P.M., when I was so bored that I actually called this guy I haven't talked to in four months (whom I will refer to as "Art" from now on). We used to be friends, but he got pretty involved with drugs so we went our separate ways. I heard he recently got an '03 Rubicon and I wanted to check it out, so I gave him a call to find he was off-roading in some secluded area about 30 minutes away. I'm not much for off-roading that late, but my friend and I were bored out of our minds and thought an impromptu forest romp might be entertaining. I had no recovery equipment but didn't plan on going too extreme, plus Art informed me he'd just acquired a recovery strap. I got to the trail at 11:30 and things were cool for a half hour, until we reached a clearing that had a dirt path on one side and a really deep water hole on the other. Now Art, being the amazing driver that he is (and I realized later high at the time), decides to test this quicksand-like surface, and immediately sinks down. I figure I can pull him out with his strap, until he tells me that he doesn't have it. So here I am, a half-hour from home, this moron is stuck with no recovery equipment and two passengers, and my buddy and I in my truck can't even pull him out. I'm a two-seater, so my buddy stays with the other guys accompanying Art, while Art and I head back to find my tow strap or his. By 12:00 we returned home, and I can't find my strap now, so I tell Art to get his. He droops his head and says that he really doesn't have a strap, and I begin to realize why I haven't called this kid in four months. I tell Art that if he wants me to go back and pick up his friends (and I was goingback  for my buddy anyway), he's gotta pay me $45 for gas. He agrees, then begins begging me to try and push his truck out with mine. I refuse, because I realize the last thing we need near 1:00 A.M. is two Jeeps stuck out in the middle of nowhere. On the way back I am super pissed, and dumb-founded by the ignorance of Art sitting next too me. Then, to my complete surprise, he says he's going to sleep in his submerged Jeep till morning, and asks to borrow my flashlight! No flashlight? Paris Hilton would survive longer in the woods than this kid. I drive all the way back to the woods, pick up Art's two friends and my buddy, drive all the way back to a town that's a half hour in the other direction from my house to drop these kids off, then finally back home to sleep. I returned at about 4:00 A.M.

So what's the worst thing about this whole trip? Realizing why I don't talk to Art the pot-head anymore. He's stoned out of his mind, driving his Jeep with as much know-how as a rubber eraser, and doesn't even have the common sense to go off-roading with at least a flashlight, the most basic of basic tools. But hey, at least he remembered his weed and cigarettes. People like him give real outdoor enthusiasts a bad reputation. I guess anybody thinks they are bound for wheelin' when their parents buy them a brand-new Rubicon. Bad-ass wheels will never make-up for sheer stupidity. I gladly took the money for driving his friends home and I will NEVER call Art again.

And if you didn't think Art was a complete dufus by this point, keep in mind that this is the second vehicle he's gotten stuck with no way to get it out. The first was a '99 Chevy Malibu (yes, a FWD family sedan) that he thought could go through a mud pit. So pitiful...

Have had many mishaps in my life- weekends that would make great fireside stories, like wheeling with no strap or even another vehicle. Hell, in high school I wheeled my ’85 F-150 2WD, with not so much as a spare tire in it and nobody with me. How many times me and my friends walked for miles to get help.. good times.

I don't know about you - but boy, that is great reading! thanks for the story.  I'm a newbie for off-roading - so you can bet I'm making a list of what not to do and how to do things right! cheers!  Looking forward to the next installment!  

Ok, Scrambler1981.....................I'm still waiting for the "next" story.  Last one was great.  

The High school I went to (back in the 70's) had a Army surplus jeep for grounds maintence, etc.  It was a M38-A I belive, still all orgianal with Milspec tires etc.  Was ridding with the shop teacher one afternoon, 4 of us crossing the Russian River in N. Ca.  Water was of coarse to deep.  Middle of the river it was 1/2 way up the dash.  Motor all under of coarse.  The current was strong enough  to be pushing us downriver sideways slowly.  Shop teacher just laughed as the motor died as he dropped it in low, let the clutch out and used starter motor to crank us right on out of the river.   So the next day we had another shop project, draining and changing all fluids.    That was my first real experiance with a Jeep.  Then there was yesterday.............My buddy (one of the same guys who was ridding in the Jeep from above story from 31 years before) was fallowing me with my kids in my TJ with his new Nissan Titan.  We were at Prarrie City OHV park out of Sacramento.    He says "you can make that hill climb with the mud puddle at the bottom"  I say "NO WAY"   ............but, kids were with me and I didn't want to look like a chicken.  Yep, burried to the pan....stuck good.  He pulls up behind me and we get the strap out..............as he laughingly says "I REALLY knew you couldn't make it too, but I wanted to pull you out"  ..........some people just have to be the HERO!!!!

i have a 1980 j10 and im only 14 so i havent quite got my permit, but from hearing these stories im not afraid to be chicken. my dad has some pretty crazy stories where his hunting partner left fingernail marks in t he dash board of his 68 ford bronco.  

You guys want to hear the bronco story? i got one of the storeis where i was in the bronco on one of the hunting trips and its was kinda freaky for me cause on one side you had a cliff that had a 250 to 275ft drop and on the other side you had a mountain going straight up.  

Pyro, can that scrambler guy tell a tale or what!

But seriously, use the judgement that the rest of us didn't. 

Keep your first Jeep forever, even when you hate it (and there will be times).

Don't race it.  That isn't what it's for.  There will be ricers that want to mess with you.  (In our day, it was clapped-out Camaros).  Let them go.  It isn't worth it.  Watch Back to the Future movies to see how one stupid drag race on the street could ruin your life.  I know it's a movie, but I'm rolling here...

Don't drink anywhere near a set of keys or steering wheel.  'Nuff said.

Go out with clubs with Jeepers over 40 (or even over 60 if you find them).  Those guys know stuff.

Keep a tow strap, flashlight (the new kind you can shake are really cool because they don't need batteries), and maybe a Power Bar under the seat.  Always.  Even at school.  The one time you need it - there it is!

There is an "I dare you" or two in your future.  Think carefully before you do.

Most of all, have fun getting to know the land around you and how to interact with it.  I went to college in the city.  I remember watching with amazement at students trying to light wet wood at a river party.  I bet them I could get them a fire with one match.  I won.

Knowledge comes by study, wisdom by observation.

If I could go back and get my first Jeep at 14 like you have I'd change that in a second.  I had to wait until I was 21!  You have quite the head start on most of us.  Congrats.

"Keep your first Jeep forever, even when you hate it (and there will be times)."

This is great advice.  Man, I wish I still had my first (and second) Jeeps.  My current Jeep is much more capable, but doesn't have the same sentimental value.

A couple other things I'd say would be a must have is a CB radio, and/or a cell phone.

When I was wheeling my Scrambler, in the mid to late '90s, in our area cellphones were still toys of the rich, so we all had CB's, and mine saved my ass at LEAST twice.

I didn't get my first vehicle until I was almost 18, and it was a '76 CJ-5, with the 258 I-6, and the three speed (meaning it was screaming at 60mph).  it had 4 bald tires- 31" I think.. on some the wire was showing.  the brakes had to be pumped a couple times to work, the heater was a joke, and the body was a rusted lost cause, but I absolutely loved it...until winter.

Funny how I got laughed at through the fall and winter, but when it warmed up and the top came off.. no more laughing.  Except when it rained.  That steel top was a *** to deal with, so once it was off, it pretty much stayed off- rain, or shine.  I didn't even know what a bikini top was until I got the Scrambler, and a soft top?  please- I wasn't rich.

First time I went offroading was with that '5.  actually I got to play with it while I had my driver's permit while on my family's first trip to the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. I was 15.  My dad and I duck taped a brown tarp between the roll bar and windshield as a makeshift 'bikini top', then followed my mother and sister in the motorhome across the state.  My dad's cousin, and his kids, brought their sweet ass CJ-7 with a 401 V-8.  After the dad's played for most of the day behind the wheel, they let us kids take the Jeeps out to play.. man what a rush that was!  The dunes are still about my favorite place to play.

I do miss that little Jeep, but parts of it remain.  the hood and grill on my Scrambler came off that Jeep, as did the second engine- which were about it's only useable parts.

Ok so my story isn't about me and actually isn't even about a jeep.  It is however a pretty funny story about my fathers friend when he was in the army involeing a river full of ice and losing a tracked A.P.C.  My dad was stationed in Germany during Nam, and if memory serves me right (I was a little kid when he told this story) he was either instructing or being instructed on operating them.  Anyways They were running a trail and part of it involved makeing it across this partially frozen river and up the cliff like service of the other side.  Apparently they new there was a 12ft drop just to the side of the rivers edge where they were planning on driving along the bed to set up to climb also there is supposedly only about 6-12"s of extra room on the part where their driving to avoid the drop.  So dad goes first makes it perfect his friend follows when everyone notices that hes over to far and try to warn him but to late he drops it over the ledge doesn't even have enough to slam the hatch shut before it fills with water.  Dad said he never saw a group of guys scramble so fast to get out of one in his life.  Just the thought of how cold that water is enough to make my jewels shrivel and go into hibernate for a month.  Not sure what happend to the guy or anything but if I remember right as far as he knows its still in the that river.  Just thought it was a amusing story.  

That reminds me of something my dad once showed me.  (also not jeep related) He had been given a copy of this video of another crew plowing cable.

He used to work for a national contractor and basically all they did was burry phone cable all over the nation.  This video was taken because the dozer being used was bran-spankin-new.  It was a big ole John Deere.  A Dozer that burries cable has the spool hooked up front where the bucket would attatch to the loader arms.  there's another spool of tape warning of burried cable, then out back is a huge plow assembly that feed the cable and tape a few feet underground leaving nothing more than a trail in the grass.

On this day, the crew was plowing across this pond.  they had poled the pond and only found it got maybe a couple feet deep, so I guess they decided to plow across than around.  They hooked four tow cats to the dozer, two at the front, and two at the back, in case of a problem, then started across.

I aint sure what they were thinking, but that dozer wasn't far from shore before it started to sink, so the operator had the tow cats pick up the pace, as he ran up the throttle more.  She kept on sinking, listing to the rear.

about halfway, the tow cats were digging holes, and the Dozer was churning mud, and barely moving.  the plow assembly was completely under, and the driver was sitting on the 'hood, and cranked the throttle to full- his seat almost completely under.

It came down to him sitting on the roof, and about the only visible parts of the Dozer was the roof, the spools out front, and the the exhaust pipe with a little of the hood.  the engine was running full tilt when she plumed steam and died.  they sent out a boat for the driver, and cut the cable. 

Dad told me the last time they poled the dozer, it was 26' down and still sinking.  I assume they plowed around the pond the next time.

I have started to plan on things that the truck needs and flash light, and tow hooks, ect are a have to have. i went to sears the other day with a 50 dollar gift card and got a 119 peice tool set for the truck. i want a cb for the truck because im not high on cell phones. you get better coverage with the cb in my opinion. and a winch i think is a have to have along with maybe a come along. if there any more things that are a need to have let me know.

Good call on the CB I know they are out dated but it can save your as when your down in a valley or pit and you have no service on a cell. Tow strap essential. My space is limited in my CJ but rain gear is tucked in heavy rain and 20 mph wind can be a *** if you have to hike out of somewhere. A first aid kit is good to have just in case.

But the first thing to get and put in to your Jeep...Common sence!!!  I can tell you how many teens I have pulled out of rolled vehicles some have lived to tell about it...Most have not. I dont want to that happen to anyone especially a fellow Jeeper!!!

About 10 or 15 years ago my brother wanted a big 4x4 truck to do some haulin' of junk around his yard. He ended up with an early '70s Ford F-250 with the wacky power steering ram assist. We welded up the rear diff when the spider gears broke from yanking a tree out of the ground. This was impressive since it was a Dana 60 with stock tires. He drove the thing around for a few weeks but it wasn't his daily driver.

Anyway, he started getting this rash on his crotch. And it was spreading fast. So he went to the doctor and the doctor told him he had gotten scabies. Apparently hidden in the three old Mexican blankets that covered the seats was a whole civilization of hungry crotch-crickets that decided to feast on his wiener. It was pretty nasty really.

Sorry it's not a Jeep story but I laugh every time I think about it.

yeah not a jeep story but I laughed out loud!! Would loved to have seen his face!