You're my hero!
Henry
MVPA 22136
and other 'stuff'
----- Original Message -----
From: <RKiser8375@aol.com>
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2000 6:32 AM
Subject: [MV] T15/M28 Weasel Rescue
T15/M28 Weasel Rescue
My goal was to salvage an old T15/M28 weasel hull from the national forest
just south of Montezuma, Colorado. The plan was to drive to Montezuma,
unload my M29C weasel, drive up the snowmobile trail to the abandoned M28
weasel, rig it up with chains, drag it up onto the snowmobile trail, and tow
it back down the trail. At the parking lot, I would load both weasels onto
the trailer and tow them back to my house in Morrison, CO before sunset.
Seemed simple enough.
I loaded a weasel on the 18 foot trailer behind the Tahoe and packed up the
following for the salvage operation:
-Stihl Farm Boss (029 Super)
-tool box with assorted tools
-crow bar
-bolt cutters
-Colt 45 pistol
-two chains
-one snatch rope
-camera
-tri-modal cell phone
-Magellan GPS Pathfinder
I had the cell phone and the GPS in case things went really bad I figured I
could always call for help and at least give my co-ordinates. I got started
a little later than I had hoped, and it was about 11:20 a.m. when I finally
left the house. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but the temperature was a
balmy 55 degrees.
I made it as far as Keystone without any problems. From there on, the
remainder of the drive up was white-knuckled, mountain driving on packed
snow. By the time I got to Montezuma, the temperature had dropped to 8
degrees.
Montezuma is an old mining town about 11,000 feet above sea level. It only
has one store and there were as many snowmobiles on mainstreet as there
were
cars. I stopped and promptly slid off the road and go stuck in a snow bank.
I unloaded the weasel and attempted to pull out the Tahoe, but the weasel
doesn't do that well on ice. It just sat on the icy road spinning tracks,
but not getting any traction. A couple of locals came out and said, "Better
go get Sarge." "Who's Sarge?" I asked. Sarge turned out to me a white M211
with a boulder the size of a Subaru strapped on the back to "put a little
weight on the back end." As Sarge maneuvered into position, they said "You
know what this means." I figured it was time to reach for the wallet.
Instead they said "We get to play with the weasel." I readily agreed and
when I turned around, the weasel was gone.
I climbed back into the Tahoe but before I could start it, Sarge pulled me
out in Park with the emergency brake on. I parked the truck and when I got
out, the weasel was sitting in the road idling. I asked them if they wanted
to join me, but they said to go ahead and if I took too long they'd come
looking for me. One of the guys decided to tag along and fired up a
snowmobile. I stuck my snowmobile registration for the weasel in my pocket
to keep everything legal. I put all the equipment into the weasel except
the
chainsaw. I figured that (a) it probably wasn't 100% legal to be whacking
trees in the national forest and (b)I didn't remember any trees being in the
way when I first saw the weasel last year.
At approximately 2:00 p.m., I climbed into the weasel, turned on the
spotlight, and headed up the trail. If things weren't going to plan, at
least they were going.
The trail was about 18" of loose snow on top of a packed powder base. The
weasel was made for this. It floated along on the snow like a boat sailing
on the ocean. It rocked gently back and forth as I climbed the trail in
low-range, 2nd gear. The evergreens were covered in snow and the only noise
was the Studebaker flat-head 6 purring away beside me.
It started to snow. The wind picked up. Although the driver's compartment
is warm due to the proximity of the engine, I had forgotten to bring a
hat…or
goggles. After passing what I assumed to be a pair of granola-crunching
snowshoers, I made it to the abandoned M28 weasel hull. The snow on the
side
of the trail was nearly three feet of loose powder. Unfortunately, there
was
an 8 foot tree blocking the hull and I didn't have the chainsaw. So, I left
the weasel running in neutral and climbed on the back of the sled
(snowmobile), driven by a guy that I still hadn't gotten a first name from,
without a hat, and raced down the trail at speeds that were easily over 50
mph. My hair froze. My face went numb. At the truck, we got the chainsaw
and went racing back to the weasels. Started the chainsaw, whacked the
tree,
and prepared to rig the M29C to the M28.
My buddy cautioned "You won't get it out. It's frozen in. It's been there
for at least 20 years." The snowshoers showed up. "You want some help
rigging that up?" he asked. He told his girlfriend to hold up and helped
rig
up the weasel hull. We hooked up the jerk strap, put it in granny gear and
got a good head of steam. Bam. The jerk strap parted like a shot. "See. I
told you. It's frozen in." I said, "look, we haven't even broken anything
significant, yet. All we need is a bigger chain."
I got out the big chain. Links as big as your thumb. I had always wondered
how someone could bend one of these solid steel pintle hooks. The one on
this weasel was twisted fairly bad when I got it. Now, I began to see how
something like that might have happened.
I backed up and got a good head of steam. Wham. The hull broke free and
budged, but stopped. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Finally, the M28 hull rose on
top of the powder and obediently followed the M29C up onto the ski trail.
Lots of shouting and high-fiving. Rigged the M28 hull up about 4 feet
behind
the M29C. Didn't want it getting out of line and going over the mountain on
one of the hairpins and pulling me down with it. It would be hard to bail
out of a weasel in an emergency. At least for the driver, anyhow.
The M29C pulled the M28 down the trail. The only real problem was that the
weasel is hard to steer when it is pulling a load and under power. It wants
to go straight instead of turning. Letting off the gas seems to make it
turn
better, but on the hairpins, I was never able to make the turns without my
buddy unhooking the load, repositioning the lead weasel, and re-chaining the
load to the pintle hook.
By the last switchback, it was snowing harder and the wind had picked up.
My
jeans were frozen like cardboard from melted snow. My hair was frozen and
covered in ice. My gloves were soaking wet. I couldn't see through the
windshield any more and wasn't sure which side to wipe. My face was red and
wind-burned.
Then, I saw something coming up the trail toward me. A large snowcat
appeared out of the weather, coming right for us. It had wide
tracks…probably 30 inches. I didn't see how I could make it past him.
There
was no way I could back up. He pulled closer and closer to the downhill
side
of the trail. Much closer than I had would have, for fear of the snow giving
way and sending me plummeting into the forest below. Finally, I had enough
room to get by and I pulled downhill until I was even with them.
It was my new buddies coming looking for us in their Christye. They looked
warm as toast in the heated snowcat. They even had a dog in the back. They
opened the window, held out a fifth of Jack Daniels, and asked me if I
wanted
a shot. The snowshoers showed up. My snowmobiling buddy came up. We passed
the bottle around and laughed and talked about our little adventure. As it
turns out, they said they had gotten worried and fired up the Christye to
come find us. I think that they hadn't started it in a couple of years and
just wanted to join in the fun. Whatever the reason, I was glad to see
them.
After a few minutes, I told them that I was freezing and made for the bottom
of the hill. I pulled the weasels into the parking lot and climbed out.
This was where my plan ended. I really had not come up with a feasible plan
to lift a 3,000 pound weasel hull full of snow onto the trailer. And on
closer inspection, it was pretty obvious that both weasels were not going to
fit on an 18 foot trailer.
One of the guys disappeared and returned with a large front end loader. We
chained up the weasel hull, hooked it to the bucket, and the loader lifted
it
in the air and sat it on the trailer like it was a toy. After warming up
inside for a couple of hours, the weather really got bad. It was dark when
I
left the M29C and made it down to Silverthorn. The highway patrol told me
that every road out of Summit County was shut down. I didn't make it back
to
my house until 9:00 a.m. the next morning. All in all, it was great
adventure.
If anyone knows where I can find any M28 parts, it would be greatly
appreciated.
=Mil-Veh is a member-supported mailing list=
To unsubscribe, send e-mail to: <mil-veh-off@mil-veh.org>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, send e-mail to <mil-veh-digest@mil-veh.org>
To reach a human, contact <ack@mil-veh.org>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:25 PST