As per previous posts 75154 major track damage occurred from a storm then a flash flood at our bush block.
For 2 months now we have been opening tracks at about 200m per week with a view to having an, all welcome , but subdued camping weekend over
Easter.
Several suggestions on how to recover tracks were made by exploroz members but in the end I decided that my old favourite, an electric jack hammer was the most suitable tool considering all the realities of the situation.
An electric jack hammer powered by a 1.5kw square wave inverter, along lead and a 4wd can reach
places even a dozer can't make and this combination has proved to be a seriously powerful tool when it comes to creating tracks thru hard and rocky ground.
With the above in mind we headed down a valley in brilliant sunshine before the weekends big wet to attempt to open more track.
The surface of the track was a little wet but hard and dry underneath.
We descended about 800ft till we reached a narrow section between an
embankment and a growing rut.
I had driven this section carefully just a week earlier when it was dry.
The track had only about 10 degrees downslope but with about 10 degrees side slope.
As we cautiously edged down I felt the back wheels begin to slip sideways much earlier than expected and instantly stopped (
well slid to a stop on the greasy top surface).
The situation seemed mild, but on getting out and examining things we realized that this seemingly innocent position had no immediate solution.
The two pictures show the cars predicament between a 3ft deep rut and an
embankment.
Every action to move the car had gravity edging it closer to the rut.
The back wheel looks like there is ground next to it but it is actually the rut filled with sloppy mud - another 6 inches and the car will be sitting on its axle and rotate further sideways and easily become unrecoverable without another vehicle positioned above.
We considered options and had most recover gear but no other vehicle was available - (
Well maybe a H2 Hummer but I would never live that down!)
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After assessing the options I decided that winching was impractical and the best way out was to go forward.
The only way to do this safely was to make the track flat, such that their would be no side force to push the car into the rut.
This is where the jack hammer came into its own, it took an hour to tear thru about 20m of hard clay/
rock track and lower the section near the
embankment about 30cm.
Fortunately some teenagers were on hand to move the dirt I dug, but none volunteered to scrape surface mud from under the car in front of the wheels.
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Carefully we let the car roll forward and it straightened and held on the highside with the back wheel just brushing the edge of the rut.
Missions accomplished, car safe, another track section re-opened, and no seriously embarrassing photo's.