pronounced.
Welcome to Botches Off-Road.
During this we talk about everything from gear reviews to trail stories, take Cambie
to rock landing, and all things to do with outcomes.
Today we're doing Radio Chatter, another episode of the Lab.
Yep.
And I do have cards ready and this time we're not going to have to redo the intro, so we're
good to go.
I'm sure the viewers would appreciate to know that this is take two.
Yes it is.
Alright, pick a card, any card, one through four.
Three.
What is your go-to camping area?
I would say Cadillac, Fife Lake area.
I would have to agree, just because, I mean I'd say Cadillac all the way to Baldwin.
Just the Manistee in general.
There's massive amounts of trails around there and a lot of them follow along the Manistee
up there, so there are plenty of trails.
There are, I mean, numerous gorgeous campsites there.
We did a trail ride with a buddy Mitch that lives in Travers in the fall and yeah, as
we were doing it and he was kind of leading us around, I thought I had a really cool site
for the cryptid site, which was probably only 10 minutes away from that and as he's taking
us through all these trails, we start pulling up to little cliffs along the Manistee River
and I'm like, wow, there's another one, oh there's another one, oh there's another one.
So like I gained probably 10 new saved campsites that were technically waterfront on Onyx and
they were all getting mad at me.
I was taking pictures and saying what I liked about the campsite before we kept going.
I mean, it's just, there are tons of trails and we actually went up there, was it the
weekend before last and we did some trails over there on the way back from Great Wolf
Lodge.
We had a little fun doing that and we went back to our old cryptid site and we took a
couple of trails around there and just explored a little bit and then came back and had some
fun but it's definitely the best spot I think in lower half of Michigan trail wise and spots.
Well I would say trail wise, I'd say Everett is way better, but camping wise, I agree that
Cadillac area is the place to be.
Everett is, I guess if I was to say, yeah like more technical trails and stuff like
that, a little harder, Everett is a lot better because I mean the Cadillac area is a lot
of just forest roads and stuff.
It's not challenging, it's just a lot of them.
So it's a lot to explore.
I agree, I think the Main-of-the-Area is so close for us, we can easily go there on a
weekend if we wanted to out of random.
Don't have to go to the UP or anything.
Which is probably why I'd say it's my go-to area just because it's close.
So you know with my job I don't really get the luxury of knowing ahead of time if I'm
going to be able to camp or not.
So it's easy to be like, hey I'm not working Saturday or Sunday so let's go camp.
Yeah, it's only an hour away so it's perfect.
Alright, one through three, someone pick a card.
Two.
I meant one through four but one through three is one.
What is your most embarrassing adventure story?
Oh I got this one on deck.
Alright.
You want to go first, Kevin?
Yeah, well mine's kind of a winter because it was the first camping I ever did.
You guys know the escape story.
So mine's a little bit of a winter too.
We went in March with our buddy Joe Yamber to go do some exploring for the, was it March?
Yeah, it was March.
For the MST Drum and Island trip.
And it was May.
Oh May, I'm sorry it was May.
And it was super wet.
Like everything was just wet.
And I don't know what I was thinking.
I just kind of was in the zone of I want to keep going forward.
I don't want to have to turn around.
And Joe was like, hey, the trail ahead, I don't think my Sequoia can go through it.
And I was like, ah, I'm going to try it.
So I went around him.
Mind you, we're in like two to three foot of water at this point.
Oh yeah.
So, so I went around him in this two to three foot of water and I made it about a hundred
yards or so.
And then suddenly my front driver's side just dipped down and my entire engine bay was underwater
and my cab was filling with water.
So I had to get winched out of that hole and I had to go swimming, actual swimming, because
it was too deep to stand up.
And yeah.
And then, so we get it all pulled out.
We get up to somewhere dry-ish and my truck just starts going, weee!
Just really high pitched squeal because I shorted out my aftermarket alarm system.
So it just started squealing like super loud.
We spent like 30 minutes trying to figure out where the sound was coming from in your
engine bay just to cut it out.
Yeah.
Oh gosh.
That's, that's pretty rough, man.
Yeah that, yeah, that's my most embarrassing trail story.
Yeah.
So it would be, you know, when Sienna and I first met, we were still kind of feeling
each other out relationship wise, long, long, see if it would hand a long period of time.
And one of my have to's is she has to want to camp.
She has to like the outdoors and prior she had never gone camping before.
Her version of camping was in a cabin with power.
I was going to say she went to band camp.
That's kind of camping.
That would probably be the closest.
We would have bonfires and stuff.
Yeah.
And that would probably be the-
And then go to our nice, nice AC cabins with electric and showers.
Yep.
That was what she was used to.
So my camping, very different.
And so I got it in my head.
I'm like, you know, we got a little time.
Let's go up on the 5th of July.
Everyone will be going down.
It won't be as busy.
And we'll just run it up the one day and get all the way up there and explore and whatever.
So that was before I really got into like off-roading and doing anything like that from
a car.
I just wanted to camp.
And so we put in Google Maps to Two Hearted Campground off of Lake Superior and we went
and we listened to every direction that it gave us.
Even though literally right after the bridge, we lost all connection with any Knesset service.
So we were going-
Oh, and you didn't have maps saved either, did you?
Nope.
On the way up, we tried multiple times to buy paper maps, but because it was the 5th
of July, everyone just wiped out a maps because everyone else had came up there.
All you have to do.
So if you go to anywhere with Wi-Fi, like a McDonald's or something, you can save all
of Michigan on Google Maps.
Yeah, I didn't know that at the time.
Oh, okay.
So I mean, straight up like tourist.
I mean, didn't know that you could save maps, only use Google Maps to get one place to another.
So we get up there, no service, and I'm taking her two-wheel drive escape and it tells us
to turn right.
And it's like a small dirt path.
And I'm like, I mean, it's saying turn right, so we should turn right.
And she's like, are you sure?
I'm like, you got to trust Google Maps, man.
I mean, what else choice do we have?
So and I looked at where Too Hard It Was.
I looked at the maps a lot before that and I'm like, it's way out there.
So it makes sense that it's down a dirt road like this little two track.
And she goes, okay.
So we start taking this little two track and before we know it, we're in dune sand, deep
ass dune sand.
And I could feel the car struggling and slowing down and I'm like, oh, fuck, we're gonna get
stuck.
I don't.
And at that point, I've like I said, no off-road experience, nothing.
I had no recovery gear.
I had nothing, no way to get us out.
And yeah, we were we were kind of kind of scared there.
Had no idea where we were at.
And we get about halfway through and we think we see an old airport or something to the
right.
And I'm like, I have to turn off traction control.
We are not going to make it.
So we get through all the deep sand.
We find a hard spot on the path and we stop and I got to the roof of the Ford Escape with
my phone, held it up to the air and got one bar and it was enough to update Google Maps.
And Google Maps is like, you took a wrong turn.
I'm like, yeah, no shit.
At that point, you know, at that point, we're creeping down a trail and a stock, you know,
you know, escape.
Two wheel drive.
Yeah, it turned out to be an ATV trail or a UTV trail.
And yeah, I find that a hindsight.
But so we're sitting up there.
I finally get it updated.
It gets us to a road and we, you know, just power through it and got through that onto
the road.
Finally made it to the campsite at about 2 a.m. and that was massively probably the most
embarrassing.
I mean, I didn't know anything.
And that's kind of when I started looking into it.
I mean, the rest of our camp trip was very successful because we stayed on those dirt
roads and and then we found a map at a lighthouse, the last map they had left.
And we use that.
But you know, off road wise, you know, over landing or whatever.
That was a massive mistake.
It was like every don't do on the list we did.
And even after that, I don't know what it was or ball joints or whatever.
Anytime we'd hit a bump, the car would rattle after that because of all the washboard and
the fact that I just powered through it.
So yeah, that was, you know, we had a fun time while we were there, but I did not take
another road like that at all that whole time because I was scared.
So that was that was a fun.
That was a fun one.
The video scene just recently on Instagram about making loss on maps and trails.
Guys reading off the list of all the vehicles that could be on the trail, he pans over as
a giant box truck.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
So it's not the first time that that's happened to someone, though.
I told that story with my MST group and someone laughed and goes, that's funny.
We had the same exact thing happen with another Ford escape.
I'm like, are you kidding?
They're like, no.
He said the there was a young kid in there, I think, driving and the two parents were
trying to push it out.
And then the kid was crying.
And so as they came up on the trail and they rescued him and got him out of there, and
I'm like, yeah, it's just and it's an escape thing.
They they fucked up with the the wording should have made it a different kind of car.
A track, a Ford trap, the competitor to the the Chevy tracks.
Ford Forest Trail would be great.
Keep it on the forest roads.
But I'm like your turn.
Oh, sorry, Gavin.
Oh, no, you're good.
I was just gonna say, yeah, that was that was embarrassing for sure.
Mostly my embarrassment will be when I went solo that one night and got stuck for like
15 minutes plus got myself out.
Hey, 15 minutes.
That's good.
It was your ego every time you get stuck.
That was what pine, wasn't it?
Yes, that was fine.
Pine has claimed many lives, man.
Yes, I when I got cocky the first time when I first bought my FJ and I'm like, yeah, man,
this thing will go anywhere.
It's a fucking tank.
It's got four wheel drive.
I'm like, I'm good.
There ain't nothing stopping this thing.
And I went down pine one time.
Anyone who doesn't know about Pine Street here in New York County, it's most of our
listeners.
Yeah, it's a mud pit, a straight mud pit.
And what's the depth?
What do you think it gets at the deepest?
A good five to six feet.
Yeah, it I mean, it's deeper.
It's about halfway.
It goes up my window at its deepest.
Yeah.
So I went down and I saw this puddle and I'd gotten through everything else before just
with a little four wheel drive and some skinny pedal.
And I was like, cool, you know, I'll get through this too.
And no big deal.
And I went and you know, this is mind you, this is after work.
I picked my son up and we're like, let's just take a trail.
So so I go through the last hole, which is the biggest one on the trail.
And I just stop.
I mean, I start driving, nothing's that I can hear the water over the muffler.
All I hear is, oh, everybody, everybody knows that sound.
I open the door, water starts pouring in.
I closed the door again.
So it was over my door at that point.
Now, so important question.
When you hear the blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, do you turn the car off?
Absolutely not.
No.
Thank God you are not dumb.
No, no, no, no.
I knew that is good enough.
But I hit the my left side hit one of the deeper ruts in there.
My right side was still elevated enough.
So I opened my door on my right side and climbed across my seat.
And this is in like spring.
So there's still snow on the ground.
The water is, I mean, pain ice cold.
And I opened the door and it's just water right up to my door ledge.
And I'm like, oh, God.
And my I call I'm calling trying to call people and nobody's around, you know, before I knew
about all the off road rescue services and all the great community around that are be
happy to pull you out.
And I'm like your neighbor.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't know you at that time.
But yeah, that's what I'm saying.
That was before you knew I was your neighbor.
Right.
And so I called my buddy Bailey, who's the only one I knew that had a truck.
And he's like, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of busy and my other trip, my ram charger is down
the one that usually takes through pine.
And I go, yeah, I'm like, I'm really stuck, man.
Like I really need help.
This is my daily and I didn't think I was getting into this.
He's like, yeah, all right, I'll get the Yukon.
So he grabs his like it's like an old five or four Yukon stock Yukon.
And he comes from from the other way, which isn't super long.
It's pretty close to the end of the trail, about three quarters of through.
And he backs up and grabs a strap.
And also before I knew about any kind of off road safety, we hook it up to my clevis in
the front, which I did have, thankfully.
But I had to take all my clothes off to get, you know, in the water.
And I am numb, cold.
I mean, I could barely stand the water so cold, like it hurts my feet so bad.
He hooks the strap up to the ball of his truck.
Oh, my God.
And starts pulling, dude.
And it's a strap, so it hits hard.
And I'm not moving at all, dude.
He gives it like five tugs and it's maybe a centimeter every time.
And he's like, I'm going to have to really hit it.
I'm like, all right, man.
Yeah, just hit it.
So he starts hitting it once.
The second time, dude, the fucking strap snapped.
The strap didn't fail, but it snapped his toe hook.
No, I'm sorry.
You know, he had a hook on his ball, on the side of the ball, and it snapped his and the
fucking strap flew back to me, hit my truck right next to the headlight.
And we're like, oh, that's, yeah, we don't like that.
Yeah, it could have been very, very bad.
So we re hooked it up.
We almost didn't have Gavin for Botch's Off-Road Podcast.
Yeah.
So we re hooked it up and he gave some other big tugs again.
And eventually it was like an inch, okay, three inches, okay, five inches.
It finally got me out.
And yeah, I swore off mud after that.
So that was, now I guess I'm going into my other embarrassing story, but Pine has claimed
a lot of people in that hole.
Yeah.
When I was in high school, I had a buddy who called me because he was stuck on Pine and
I went out, he was in a one ton super duty power stroke.
And I went out there and my dad's little OBS power stroke, extended cab 250.
And I took a normal toe strap, a big one, like an eight inch wide one, like the military
toe strap.
And I hooked it.
I just set it on the ball of the truck and then hooked it to his ball because I was pulling
him out backwards.
And I just sat there and yanked on him, like backing up and slamming on it for like a good
seven or eight times.
And I got him out.
There was the strap didn't fail.
It didn't come off either of the toe balls, but it bent the ball on my dad's truck and
we couldn't remove the hitch receiver or the ball.
So it was stuck as a two inch hitch for the rest of the time he owned it.
And let that be a lesson to everybody to study and research, even take classes on proper
recovery techniques, because the instance that happened to me and the instance that
could have almost happened to Alex or his buddy is very possible.
It happens all the time where people aren't hooking up to good toe points.
They're using equipment that isn't made for the strength that they're pulling.
And it's a cheap Amazon bumpers that don't have good hitch points or toe, you know, whatever.
And the strap snap, the points break and it can kill people and it has killed people.
So make sure you do your research.
Don't be stupid.
Like we were, we got lucky.
I was a young dumb.
Well, how's that song go?
Young dumb and free or something like that.
Yep.
I think I was 16.
Like I just got my license.
Recovery is massively important if you do the thing that we do.
And it's very important that you know what you're doing.
Because if you don't, you can hurt somebody and that somebody could have kids.
You got to think about that before you go and do stupid things.
So we should move on to our next one or do we not have enough?
All right, guys, we have time for one more card.
So pick a number one through four.
It's on you, Mark.
Let's do one.
You just picked an after dark card.
Oh, what is your best adventure themed pickup line?
Man, we talked about this one, too.
We did.
We were like, what should we keep it?
Baby, let me see your dirt road.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's a good one.
You know, my rigs set up so that I could cook for you under the night sky and then I can
bang you under the night sky.
I don't know, man.
It's off the top of my head.
I just thought about the fact that we have rooftop tents and okay.
So if you're banging her under the night sky, you'd have to remove the tent and put like
a deck on the roof.
I never said I was good at pickup lines.
No, it was good.
That was good, man.
That was good.
I like it.
Well, enjoying the rough riders.
Yeah.
What makes that one even funnier is that the Jeep club in Sierra Vista is the Cochise County
rough riders.
How about I'm going to love you like a snowstorm.
Yeah, I'm going to give you eight to 12 inches and you won't be able to leave your house
for three to four days.
I mean, is that adventure theme or is that just there?
There's an adventure there.
There is an adventure there.
You're going to want your aluminum shovel you got in the back of your car.
Set for me, it'd be more like I'm going to give you two to four inches.
Typical Michigan.
That's Michigan weather right there.
They're going to call for six to 12, but I'm only going to be able to give you two to four.
Yeah, there you go.
That's what it is.
I might tell you eight to 12, but you're only getting two to four.
Probably to love you like a weatherman.
All right.
And on that note, we'll have to catch you guys later.
Later.