With horror, I looked down from the seat of the ATV I had been driving to discover the wheels were buried up to their hubs in mud - and sinking. It had been my first effort at taking the driver's seat of the family "wheeler," and despite my husband's misgivings, I had veered off the main trail and taken an alternative route that quickly deteriorated from pristine woodland to lowland bog.
With the questionable judgment of a novice, I had panicked and slowed the machine to a crawl when I first hit the soft ground - and then over-compensated by gunning the throttle, just as the machine started to settle into the quagmire.
And then, I exhibited the only good judgment I had all day. I released the throttle, put the mighty "beast" in neutral, gingerly climbed down into the swamp - and clamored out of the way. I was wise enough to know there was nothing else constructive I could do with the marooned machine, and our only hope lay in the chance my husband would know what to do to get it out, especially since we were miles and miles away from the parking lot where we'd parked our truck and trailer.
I stood back and watched as Ken slowly shook his head from side to side - and then casually unfurled several feet of cable hooked to a winch, wrapped it around a tree that, thankfully, was located on a small patch of high ground, and then returned to the ATV.
Calmly, with a single index finger, he pushed a button on the instrument panel of the mired four-wheeler and then settled back and watched as the cable tightened and the machine began to rock, its tires making sucking sounds in the mud. And with agonizing slowness, the big ATV inched forward throwing mud in all directions, including all over the two of us!
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As the big machine at last reached the high ground under the tree, I heaved a sigh of relief - briefly. It didn't take long to realize there was a good deal of precarious maneuvering yet to be done. Somehow, we had to get the ATV back through the narrow patch of high ground along the edge of the bog and back onto the trail so we could backtrack out of the swamp.
With a far more experienced touch than mine, Ken slowly worked the ATV along and around brush and swamp grass while I looked safely on from high ground. It was only after he was out of the mud that I at last began to relax, realizing just how absurd the both of us looked covered head to toe in mud.
And then, I actually giggled when I realized just how impressed all of "the boys" back in the parking lot were going to be when we reemerged from the trail, looking for all the world like seasoned ATVers - back from a wild interlude of backwoods mud bogging!
Pine Journal Publisher Wendy Johnson can be contacted at: wjohnson@pinejournal.com .
