24
hours on the Road to Hell
The following events occurred during a
10-day trip by the Landcruiser Club of SA to the Richtersveld in March/April
2004. On the second day of our trip,
after an overnight at Kamgab (S28.85297 E18.02902), we were to explore the Road
to Hell nearby. It is a
4 km decent over the mountains down to the
Orange River that is reportedly the worst piece of 4x4 trail available in SA -
we just had to check it out! It turned out later that the pass was built
in the late ‘50’s to reach a small copper mine and was apparently traversed in
a series 2 Land Rover. (turn-off from “main road” at S28.89964 E17.90992, pass
starts at S28.85070 E17.97284 – check T4A).
I was the first down the mountain and the
decent was ass-clamping stuff - my brakes started fading in low range
first! (with hind-sight this could have been due to oil from both my rear
axle seals giving up the ghost - only saw this later). Everybody made it
down after some road-building to get the wider-tyred LCs through. We drove
down to the river, had a swim and lunch (at S28.83244 E18.00887) before
contemplating the ascent - we were not sure if we'll all make it without
trouble.
It was decided to intersperse the convoy
with diff-locked vehicles (Keith and Jurie's 100s, Peter's 79 and Alfred's
magnificent 80) to minimise possible problems and potential recovery
effort. As we were crawling back through the riverbed to the start of
ascent, Keith, who was leading the convoy at the time, came on over the radio
with the words "Lima Charlie (LC), there are two Colts with trailers
heading our way!". Aware of Keith's stated dislike of Colts (he
owned one) and his complete hate of trailers (he never owned one), I thought he
was playing an early April Fool's joke on us, but as we came over a crest -
there they were in the riverbed: V6 Colt with trailer stuck on a rock in
the riverbed, a 2 x 4 Ford bakkie stuck in the sand, and a little further back
a Jeep Grand Cherokee with trailer and a diesel Colt with trailer!
Different emotions abound: our group
slightly amused and highly amazed; the "trailer" group stunned!
They may have been stunned due to their predicament, or due to the sight of 9
LCs appearing god-sent over the crest - we don't know. Some of us thought
to let them be and suffer the consequences of their own stupidity for coming
down that mountain in the first place. Others, and notably Piet, our tour
leader, said there was no way that we can leave them there. We started
organising a potentially mammoth recovery. We decided to stick to our
earlier plan of leading with diff-lock LCs, then an un-difflocked LC, then a
vehicle with trailer, with the idea of using a tandem pull when required.
The recovery was structured as follows:
Keith Richardson 100 GX (diff-lock)
Piet van Heerde FJ60 G
Colt 4x4 (diesel) with trailer
Peter Zagel 79 (ARB diff-lock)
Andre Taljaard 79
Grand Cherokee with trailer
Alfred Hilton 80 GX (ARB diff-lock)
Colt 4x4 V6 with trailer
Roland Bergh 80GX
Marius Preston 80GX
Anton Matthee 80VX TD
Jurie Schuurman 100 GX (diff-lock)
Ford Courier 2x4 (diff-lock)
What you all have to appreciate here is that
once on the ascent, there is absolutely no opportunity to turn around, overtake
or any other contingency - there was only one way out and that was up! We
started to crawl up the mountain in this procession, but even sooner than we
expected we had to haul out our recovery gear to get the trailered vehicles
over even minor obstacles. Due to the tandem-pull strategy with the first
two groups (diesel Colt and Cherokee), the non-difflock vehicles of Piet and
André had the extreme task of basically hauling the the trailered vehicles up
the mountain for most of the time, both shredding tyres on the way. As
the mountain got steeper, the diff-locked vehicles were permanently attached to
perform a tandem pull. This worked to an extent, but at some point, both
recoveries got baulked. At this stage we were seriously considering
dumping the trailers down the mountain slope!
However, the trailer to the diesel Colt was
unhooked and the vehicle hauled over the mountain in a tandem pull by Piet and
Keith. Piet, the only vehicle available with a towhook, then proceeded
back down the mountain in reverse (!!) to pick up the trailer. The
trailer was hooked up to Piet's 60 (1988 model) and hauled in one go over the
mountain - a roar erupted from the valley as we all applauded this achievement!
While this was happening, the recovery of
the Cherokee, with its state of the art B'rakah trailer, was continuing, but
with little success. As dusk was settling in we decided to call it a
day. The two 79s were sent over the mountain to camp on the other side,
leaving the Cherokee and its trailer, together with 7 other vehicles behind it
still on the mountain, some of our vehicles at a precarious 30 deg
angle. Again the spirit of the LCCSA prevailed as everybody started
feeding themselves, with Jurie even doing a full-blown potjie! At times
music erupted from the car stereos. Some of our rescuees joined in, but
the boss in the Cherokee was having a hard time from his wife who had not left
the car since we first came upon them in the valley earlier in the day!
Some guys managed to find a flat piece of
earth to sleep on, while the rest of us slept in the vehicles. At the
angle my vehicle was standing, Gary and I actually had a flat bed when we
dropped the seat backs. We slept reasonably well, got up the next morning
with some coffee and rusks. At around 8 o'clock Keith came on over the
radio with some further thoughts on how to continue with the recovery. At
first it was thought to employ the winch on Peter’s 79, but the terrain and the
prospect of having to reverse the red 79 UP the mountain afterwards, counted
against this option.
Keith then reversed his 100 down to perform
a direct pull on the Cherokee and its trailer, but this wasn’t
successful. The trailer was unhooked from the Cherokee (to the dismay of
its owner) to see whether it would be able to drive out on its own. With
a lot of road-building and pushing, the Cherokee managed to drive out on its
own. Piet's 60 was sent down (in reverse again!) to get the
trailer. At this point we established that the trailer was fitted with
massive watertanks and suggested that they be emptied. Its owner, (the
boss - everybody worked for the same company) opposed this as his wife
"would have nothing but Gauteng water"! We opened the
taps!!
We also ordered them to take out all the
stuff inside the trailer as we were concerned about the hammering Piet's
vehicle was taking, it being the very essence of his livelihood. After a
while, it was decided to bring Keith’s 100 down (in reverse again) to assist
Piet’s vehicle. Due to the very narrow
track at this point, a number of tow straps were linked together in order for
Keith to be able to position his 100 at a wider part of the track a little higher up the pass. When they had progressed the length of one
tow strap, the strap was removed and the 100 reversed back to be hooked up to
the shortened strap. Strap by strap,
the older and newer Cruiser working together to haul the big trailer up the
pass, until the major obstacles were cleared for Piet to haul this trailer to
the top of the mountain.
Next to go was Alfred in his 80 with the V6
Colt and trailer in tow, this time with no tandem pull. In a brilliant
piece of driving in an awesome vehicle, Alfred hauled out the Colt and trailer
in one go! Only one more to go - Jurie with the 2x4 bakkie - but first
the non-locked 80s had to come out.
Personally, I experienced such a rush of
adrenaline that I could hardly get myself to calm down to drive up the
mountain. When I got going, I was going way too fast with wheels spinning
and rocks flying in all directions (and Jurie shouting: Jou f%kken
cowboy!"). I got stuck a few times, but managed with brute force
(and I have to admit, no finesse) to recover myself and drive out. Then
came Marius, with expert guiding from Piet, hardly moving a stone in a very
controlled drive up to the top. Anton in his auto TD did it in much the same
way. Then came Jurie with the 2x4. In an excellent display of
controlled driving, Jurie hauled the bakkie along, helped by a very
sensible driver in the bakkie. He probably had the most sense of all
the rescuees - following Jurie with the bakkie's diff locked, the snatch strap
was hanging limb at times. They also got out in one go.
Piet did a survey of the damages incurred to
the vehicles involved in the thick of things and negotiated a couple of G’s
settlement with the other party. This would be primarily for tyres on
Piet's, Keith's and André's vehicles together with a couple of well-used snatch
and tow straps.
The level of teamwork and camaraderie will
only be fully appreciated by those that were on that mountain for 24hrs!. In
hindsight, this was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but strangely
also soon forgotten as we were confronted with the beauty of the Richtersveld
over the next number of days.
Pictures: Photos of the
track !
Roland Bergh
Email: mailto:rbergh@global.co.za