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Problem here, is Rosie has a fierce Newfoundlander's pride. If he can't make it one way, he'll find a way to make it. So he gives it one more go, and down goes the gas pedal, all the way to the floor, and he gets up there pretty close, but his truck is bouncing madly, and WHAMMO! His front driveshaft blows chunks big time. Second time this year too. Hopefully Rosie will be up and running again after his tour of duty this winter.

That's one thing to watch out for. Try to never let your truck bounce too much. That's often where one will break parts. The tires up in the air and spinning at high RPM, and then all of sudden hitting the ground and getting traction. The sudden halt of momentum can be just too much for some parts to take.

Since he was blocking the trail, and he didn't have rear tow points we decided to go around the other way and pull him up the big hill. On our way around we ran into Craig, Travis, Sean, and their buddies. Craig was kind enough to offer his winching services so that group went back with Jay to recover Rosie's truck.

We thought it would be a simple extraction and the rest of us would probably be more in the way than anything so we found a good spot to hang out and wait for Rosie and Jay to catch up. It was drizzling a little on and off, and it was a little chilly so we lit up a little fire.

Around the fire we were all full of sarcasm as usual, and we roasted Rosie a little (all in good fun of course). Soon it started to get dark, and we were kind of wondering what was taking so long. Then Jay called up Dan on his FSR radio, to say that things weren't going so well.

Between some of the raunchiest conversations you'll ever hear this side of Langford, and stoking the fire, we were getting reports back from Jay. At one point it was announced that Craig's winch bit the big one. Now we were all feeling pretty bad that we roped those guys into what we thought would be a simple extraction, but what in fact had turned into a nightmare of it's own. There was talk about going back to help out. Maybe I was wrong, but I felt again that we wouldn't have been able to help much. They had four very capable trucks there, and extra hands in Jay, Rosie, and Trevor. I thought it best to just wait it out.

Everyone were getting hungry, I was running out of smokes, and Cody was missing his Poo Bear and Micheal Jackson jammies, when we saw some headlights coming towards us. We thought it was Rosie and the gang, and you could sense the relief. Only it wasn't them, instead another group of Island4x4ers on their way out.

After some more disgusting banter, and lots of talk about food (I think Cody was getting a little worried that he'd become our meal if Rosie didn't show up soon), we finally saw the correct set of headlights coming down the trail. Much relief for everyone. We put out the fire, and got on our way to head home. Just as we were leaving Craig and the crew showed up again coming from the other direction. They came around to make sure Rosie made it back ok. That is the spirit I like to see in the people I 'wheel with.

All in all, it lived up to the Nightmare moniker, but it was a great day still the same. Whether we do a trail in a couple hours and everything goes off without a hitch or we end up out in the bush for 10-12 hours, it's always fun to hang out with such good natured people as those I continually meet through this web site. For us it's not always about how hard-core the trail is or how fast we can get in and out of there. It's about the adventure, and it's about the people involved that make it so much fun.

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Written by jo-jo
Pictures by Cody