Took a shortcut (aka quad trail) into town, and all went well until the last wash crossing before the main trail.... that's when I found a sandbar that was the perfect height and width to get poor Sara high-centred. Unfortunately since we were coming out of the wash onto the flat there was nothing solid enough to grab onto with the winch cable so plan B was to jack the wheels up and throw some rocks underneath. Uh oh, my Jackall (aka Hi-Lift) is back in the pickup at home, and the Jeep factory jack isn't up to the task (in fairness, the jack is fine but the handle twisted like a pretzel. OK, plan C: dig out with my emergency folding shovel... oops, sand too soft, just keep spinning the wheels down. Plan D: flag down a friendly passing UTV to use as an anchor point... too light so found a kindly gent with a 1 ton pickup. Once we got something with a little weight to hook onto, Sara winched herself out of there without straining.
Lesson learned: Need more recovery gear! Trip to Harbor Freight in Lake Havasu and Sara now sports a brand new Jackall (aka farm jack), an extra 75 feet of winch cable with a loop at each end, and another 30 foot strap. That'll now give her a reach of about 220 feet to find a solid tree, and a decent jack if there isn't one. Hope to not need them.
Undaunted by the earlier incident and bolstered by the addition of more gear, we set off in search of the Arizona Peace Trail Bouse-to-Quartzsite segment. We were not successful (apparently the budget for signage is far too small to actually put any at forks in the trails) but I managed to find some old relics along the stagecoach trail.
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