Off road not the way I wanted it

I had done my two weeks at Cluxewe Resort, and was feeling antsy to get out. But the weather had decided to throw a curveball of 10-30cm of snow forecast overnight, with me leaving the next day. I decided to make up my mind to go once I saw how much snow had fallen. It was not even 10cm where I was at, so I pack up, and head off to Rupert Inlet, for some camping where I had previously scouted out a spot. It was not to be.

I had walked around Cluxewe Resort a bit first, making sure that the snow was not too deep anywhere – drifting from the strong wind had whipped up the snow a bit. But nothing past my ankle was anywhere, so I set off, after having another long chat with Andrew, a former fishing guide who had been guiding at one of the same locations I went to in the Queen Charlottes.

My first worry was getting off the highway onto the Rupert main logging road. A pile of snow in front of the road could stop me right there. But the plows had been reasonable in clearing, so getting on the road was fine. I was keeping to a slow speed, but fast enough to have a bit of momentum climbing the little hills along the road. Everything was going fine, I had not slid at all. Even climbing the hills was done with no slipping on the rear tires. I move over to pass one oncoming truck, surprised someone is out. But people do live down at the water, and there are tracks in the snow.

My next corner is coming up so I move to the right a bit to give myself a better line of sight, moving off the center of the road so my left tire is now on the right tire of the track that has been cut before me. I suddenly start sliding off to the right, heading for the ditch. While I try to recover, in all of two seconds I have plowed to a stop in the right hand ditch, right wheel buried in snow.

Nose job PXL_20220106_201008412

Nose job in the ditch

A few seconds of cursing later, I get out to survey the mess I’m in. Doesn’t look good, but doesn’t look impossible to get myself out. In terms of my situation, this isn’t nearly as bad as it could be. I’m on a major road, with people driving down it regularly. I do have cell service, so I can call for help. My RV is tilted, but still usable. Worst case scenario, I could camp overnight if I had to. My plan is to dig out and back out the way I came in – the ditch isn’t that steep going back, compared to in front of me where it is sharper with little bushes sticking out. I resolve to dig for a while and give it my best effort. If I have no luck, then I’ll call a tow truck.

Not the way to park it 2022-01-09_03-10-01

My emergency shovel is sticking out on the right of the RV

I dug for about an hour, then took a little break for lunch in my very tilted RV. Opening the fridge, I expected half of it to try escaping downhill, but most things held on thanks to the rails on the bottom of the shelves. I continue my digging after my quick lunch and sure enough, a truck pulls up towing a trailer full of lumber. Brian says he’ll come back in a few minutes after he drops off his lumber. I continue digging, and sure enough, Brian returns, straps ready.

He suggests we pull out the rig forwards, saying backwards could just make the front slide further down the ditch. But there are no towing hooks to be found on the front of my rig, what a terrible omission on Ford’s part! A friend of Brian’s arrives, and after looking at the right some more, they decide the best place to attach is on the front wheel. I’m having a bad feeling about this – not sure you can pull much on the front wheel. We have gained a little lineup of people all waiting now for the rescue to be attempted. This road does get some traffic.

First we back up my rig a bit, I’m convinced a bit of pulling and we’d have gotten out going backwards, but who knows? We resume at the front and at first it looks like the rig might come out. But it gets sucked back into the right ditch. We try again, this time pulling a little harder. I’m not liking this, not that I have much choice at this point, he’s giving her a good yank. We really don’t get much closer, then I look at the wheel. I’ve got it cranked full left, yet the driver’s side is almost straight.

After the attempt to get me out PXL_20220106_230144681

After trying to get me out. Note the front wheels pointing different directions

My bad feelings have been born out – the steering tie rod has been bent from yanking the wheel over. There will be no truck rescue now, it is tow truck time. At least Brian is good enough to set me up with a local tow truck outfit,  Applewood Auto Body Towing and Glass Repair. Nothing for me to do now but wait for the tow truck. Oh, and dig myself out again, having been buried on the right side again being yanked forward. Much digging and an hour and a half later, my tow truck driver, Steve arrives. He delayed coming so that the plow could get ahead of him and make the road a little more passable. Evidently, they are part of his family. That explains why the plow just went by without stopping, and just waved!

Steve commences hooking up. He’s pulling me out the front too, but says my idea of getting myself out backwards might have worked. So there. Steve struggles with the tow truck too – it is RWD, and the tires look to be more summer than anything else. But he can anchor the tow truck down with a solid looking ram. He slowly pulls me out, watching the right side which still keeps trying to suck back into the ditch. A very slow pull later, we are finally back on the road, cockeyed front wheels and all.

There is no place to turn around, so we proceed down the the next road junction. A friend of Steve’s pulls up behind, to act as rescue in case we get stuck while Steve is towing us! North Vancouver Island people seem to come around to help each other out. Steve is a young friendly guy. We struck up a good conversation. He’s lived here all his life, and says he’s never seen roads get bad like this and stay that way for so long. Yeah, I picked the one year in thirty brutal winter on Vancouver Island to try boondocking. Great.

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Hooked up and ready to head to the repair shop

While the road back was a slippery for us, the weight of my RV did stabilize things so that we stuck to the road with only a little sliding. We head back to Applewood. It turns out they can do the repairs too, so I might as well give them a try, I figured. Doesn’t hurt that they let me stay in their yard, with power. It’s not the camping spot I expected, but at least I’m warm, with internet, and a store nearby if I want to go for a munchie.

Don is the boss there, he lets me know they might be able to get the part, a steering rod tie end in tomorrow.  The replacement would be quick, so I’d be on my way that day. With the the bad roads and the supply chain issues we’d been having, I was doubtful things would get done this quick. Sure enough, it turns out my part is not available in Campbell River, a three hour drive away, rather it has to come from Vancouver, a five hour drive, plus a ferry trip at least! So we are talking Monday at the soonest. So I had a nice weekend to explore Fort Rupert at least, which I’ll talk about in the following post.

The part did show up on Monday and an hour later, my RV was fixed and on its way. Steve did the repair, pulling the RV into a shed and lifting it with a tow truck. He threw a couple of stands down, some wheel chocks and it was good to work on. No hoists here, this is the North Vancouver Island way of doing things according to Steve. It is a straightforward repair, just remove the old part and put on the new one.

Repair done, the RV still needed a wheel alignment, as the shop didn’t have the tools for that.  I booked the earliest appointment over at the Ford dealer three days later, a more regular timeline I expect these days from auto service shops. While waiting for that, I camped in the area, not going too far so as to not damage my tires should the alignment be really off.

The alignment was done at Applewood Ford (one group seems to have a monopoly on most of the dealers and repair services in the area). They were not sure at first if the RV would fit in height and length. Once I told them the RV was 20 feet long, they said to bring it in, it might fit. Turns out the height is more of an issue, but my RV is also a bit shorter than average so it does fit. Advantage: small RV! The repair shop did a really good job estimating the alignment – it turns out the Ford dealer didn’t have to adjust a thing, so they gave me a nice discount since the work was done quicker than expected. Now that doesn’t happen too often!

With that done, I was back to my regularly scheduled camping. A week had past, I was going  back to the same spot I had attempted previously. This time, the roads were much better, so no unexpected off-roading this time! I’ll get to that soon enough, but for my next post I’ll talk a bit about some of the things I saw during my week of repairs in the Fort Rupert and Port Hardy area.

About ralph

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