This past 5 months I have been in Grenada MS. During the winter they drain the Grenada lake down a good bit. Thats when you go riding in the "Mud Flats" One day after work I went riding on my fourwheeler just looking around. I wore my good clothes, not planning to get dirty. The whole lake (thousands of acreas) was mud. I was going across a little dip when my fourwheeler sunk. I have been on hundreds of mud rides with friends and every day by my self. Every time I get stuck I just push it out. Not this time though. I stepped off of the fourwheeler and sank to my thighs. This is pure thick mud now, no water. Anyway I went to lift on the fourwheeler and sank to my waist. I had to use the atv to actually pull my self back up. After trying my loading ramps and sticks, until dark, I decided I needed to do something different. I noticed where some old truck tracks went and followed them with a flashlight. The tracks stayed on the high points. I thought I might have a chance with my truck if I went where the other truck went. Now keep in mind that looking off of the dam (the nearest road) a truck is simply a dot if you happen to make out what it is. So I followed the tracks in 4hi spinning every inch going 35 mph. I got to my fourwheeler on a high spot that was pretty firm. I had about 75 foot of cable a 10 foot tow strap, 15 foot chain, and 3 small atv tow staps. After hooking all of this up I was about 10 feet short so Slowly backed my truck off of the high spot. About 5 foot back it sank. I had just moved to the area so I didn't know but one person with a 4x4. I called him, and he brought his jeep wrangler 4x4 with about 32 inch mud grips and his friend had a z71. The z71 hooked up and pulled me out. The guy in the jeep was showing out and said his jeep could get closer to the atv and pull it out. He didn't even make it half way out before sinking to the frame. The z71 with mud grips hooked to the jeep and could not pull it out, so we both hooked up and still could not pull the jeep out. The z71s trans would start overheating and slipping so I had to wait for him to let the trans cool. Then the z71 got stuck then popped something in the front end after sinking it to the frame. I tried to pull it out but there was no way since he only had two wheels pulling and my stock goodyears were no help either. I was breaking chains cables and tow straps right and left. I had the cable break one time and it left some good scratches in the tailgate. Another time one of the hooks came undone and went straight through the license plate, took the first three letters clean off. We went to walmart and got 2 20000 # tow straps. I broke both of them hooked in parrallel. 40000 lbs of tow straps that the might 5.4 broke. The seat belt restrain real good on these trucks. Before the straps broke it felt like I was hitting a brick wall. I would back all of the way up and put it on the floor. So there we were with two trucks and an atv stuck. So they called another boy with a 95 extended cab truck with mud kings on it. I went back up to the road to lead the way. He was following me and about 1/2 way out he sank to the frame. I went back and he had screwed the motor up big time. It was smoking out both exaust, sputtering and would not even spin the tires in 4 lo. He had a come-a-long that we tried to get the jeep and first z71 out. No luck. We went back and I tried pulling the 2nd z71 out. After trying from every angle I finally got stuck. We used a the com a long to get my truck out. At 4:00 in the morning we decided to call it a night. We did call someone else with a z71 but when he got there he was scared to come out there. The next evening we had about 15 4x4s. There was an older solid axle chev 1/2 ton and a huge jeep wiht 40 inchers and I noticed a nitrous bottle in it. Both of those had winches, so they went to the rescue. Hooking both winches to the 2nd z71 they pulled it out. Went to the 1st z71 used both winches again to pull it out. ON the jeep they hooked both to it but the older chev was sliding forward, so he backed up to dig some ruts to keep him from sliding. He broke either the front u-joints or axles one. It was night and sparks went everywhere. When they got the jeep out we all headed back for dry ground. So out of 3 chevies, 1 came back with a bad motor and the other two without front wheel drive.

I went mudriding in truck everyday after work but I stayed on the trails that went around the edge of the lake. I only tried the bad stuff on the weekends when people were out there in case I got stuck (which I did a few times). On weekends there would be about 75 trucks and 75 fourwheelers on the end of the lake I was on. I never did get a chance to go to the othere side where the "big boys" run. From what I here they don't go in on anything less that 44s. and one guy has an blazer on tractor tires with a rim size of 52 inches. On my side of the lake 33's to 40s were the norm. Everyone uses hp out there. No 4 cly. I only saw one toy out there, it had a big v8 with stacks comming out of the bed, 35 boggers, dana 60 axles and would run.

[This message has been edited by ford-tough1 (edited 06-01-2000).]

 

Ford-tough1-
Great story, sounds like a fun time was had, even if you did get stuck. Impressed by the number of straps that you broke, must have been some really nasty stuff.

 

wow... nice night and i thought we back here where the only one who could get that stuck.

 

Great story. Once I was mudding a Jimmy in a field on the Fayette Shelby county line and my front end hit a sink hole and sunk up to the headlights with the back tires off the ground. In 4 hours I had a Tacoma, a Dakota, and an F-150 try to pull me out. Finally my brother and dad got home, dad was driving the truck I have now (see below) my brother has a BIG Z71. The Z pulled me out without a problem at about 2 in the morning on a school night (I am still in high school). I was amazed at how good my F-150 4x2 did offroad, the terrain was dry except for mud holes but there were mud "rocks" that it had to get over. I guess it was the 32 inch tires on the F150 that help. It ran like a 4x4. Never seen what it can do in the wet stuff though.

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'97 F-150 XLT Expidition front end (no idea why). 17inch 4x4 wheels with 32 inch tires flowmasters with tips, K&N filter, 5-spd, 4.2 V-6 bedliner, bright clearcoat red, stepside, hidden hitch, 3.55 gear ratio, tinted windows and a BIG reg ford sticker on the back window (my greatest joy is cutting people off who have calvin pissin on the ford sign and they HAVE to look at my big red sticker)