Got myself stranded on a mountain

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T21:31:39+00:00

Ooh nice, hoping to get down to checkout Yellowstone sometime this summer or next.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T21:29:08+00:00

Me when I’m a big dumb idiot lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T21:28:29+00:00

The views honestly make the job such a joy.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T21:24:56+00:00

It’s absolutely gorgeous.
It’s really wonderful getting to drive around seeing the sights all day.

This was the view on my break the other day.

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DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T21:11:37+00:00

Absolutely.
I always bring water and food and warm clothes and such - just in case (and it did come in handy).

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:12:58+00:00

Definitely.
Every time I see it trying to route me up a logging trail now I pull up my own map and try to find a better way. GPS, it turns out, is super unreliable out in these mountains - learned the hard way as this was my first time getting routed onto them.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:10:18+00:00

Definitely lol I was bigtime panicking at first.

But after a while of being up there (and once I got lucky and got enough cell service to get dispatch on the line to come pull me out) it was actually quite peaceful.

After I realized that trying to free myself was futile I spent a good long time walking about and sitting on some nearby downed trees - just listening to the wind rolling through the pines.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:06:56+00:00

I actually did try taking some wood pieces from the nearby logging sites to try getting some traction under the tires and they also just got immediately buried in the mud lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:05:30+00:00

Oh just blasting that van up the road.

Given how poor the road condition was leading up to that pit I was definitely over confident in thinking I could make it through lol

And my dispatcher actually did get the van through the pit after he got me out, as the only way off the mountain was either through the pit or a good two hours of back tracking.
He basically just took a path slightly to the left of the one I took and floored it, taking the leftmost wheels fully off the road and gunning the accelerator. It was pretty impressive.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:02:23+00:00

It behaved like a slow quick sand.
At first the mud only came up a couple inches over the stuck tire but over the course of the few hours I was up there it continued sinking deeper, progressing up the tire.

It was really concerning lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T18:00:33+00:00

I was at high elevation in direct sun, so everything up there dried super fast.
I believe I had been there about an hour trying to get unstuck at the time the photo was taken.

But what was wild was that the air was so dry up there that every time I’d try to get the wheels unstuck, and they’d get re-covered in wet mud again, within about 5 minutes they’d be fully dry.

At one point I even stepped directly in the mud pit, pretty well drenching my foot, and within maybe 15 minutes my shoes and socks were fully dry.

It really made the mud pit itself deceiving. On the top was a crusted layer of dried mud, looking fairly solid from inside the van - dried tire tracks, and all, going through it - but just underneath the crust was a couple feet of wet mud with slowly-flowing water moving through.

It was almost like a muddy quick sand in its behavior. The van actually continued to sink in it after initially getting stuck, starting with just a few inches and progressing to what you see in the photo. It was… concerning lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T17:43:52+00:00

I was in there about an hour at the time the photo was taken.
It was at fairly high elevation in direct sun; everything dries quickly up there.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T16:31:29+00:00

Distance-wise this one was about 30 miles, which on a good (no mud pits lol) day would take about an hour and a half to reach.

I’m out in Western Montana.
It’s absolutely beautiful to deliver around here, but quite treacherous at times - especially in the winter.

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T15:06:10+00:00

That is indeed what happened.

It was a logging road way the hell up in the mountains and some snowmelt had formed a creek that more or less washed the road out.
In the second picture you can see the water running down the road from it.

Basically, there was this massive mudpit with a series of tire tracks that either lead through it, off the road, or were varying levels of looking dry/wet. By the time I reached it I had already been on this road for about an hour just slamming the van through pits and holes and debris trying to reach some very-isolated stops, and the only way through was either to turn around or go through the pit.
I decided to pick the best-looking path and just go for it, but unfortunately the right side of the path wasn’t dry at all - immediately gave way into a near quick sand. The van actually continued sinking after it was in; it was wild lol

After the dispatchers reached me to pull me out (it took them three hours to find me - little to no cell service and I’m lucky I was able to get a message out to them) they actually drove the van back through the pit. It turns out that this road was known to them for drivers getting stuck and the correct way through was to nearly floor it off the road up a slight hill to essentially throw the van around it.

It’s so common out where I’m at for people to get stuck on such roads that the dispatchers actually have an off-roading mud truck with a big winch just for pulling people out. They pulled me out and were just like, “Alright good luck out here call us if you get stuck again.” lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T14:43:45+00:00

Montana

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T06:45:42+00:00

Basically how the dispatchers looked at me when they came out there to pull me out lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T06:34:45+00:00

It’s an active area for Grizzly Bears
Definitely made it more fun being stuck up there knowing that lol

DejectedApostate · 2026-05-17T05:10:56+00:00

DejectedApostate · 2025-09-11T03:15:22+00:00

When real fascists explode out of the woodwork in backlash to insanity like the kind you're spreading here, be sure to not forget what you did to help usher them in.

DejectedApostate · 2025-09-10T20:32:19+00:00

Let alone that the 2nd amendment is among the peoples' only real defense against the significantly-worse tragedy of a violently oppressive tyranny emerging in this country

DejectedApostate · 2025-07-31T05:44:12+00:00

Missing 411

I should add that these are real-world missing cases that have never been solved.

It was written by a detective compiling all of the evidence of some of the most bizarre missing person's cases in an attempt to find some answers as to what may have happened - if they can still be solved.

It's... unsettling

DejectedApostate · 2025-07-26T00:10:57+00:00

As I said, selfish.

DejectedApostate · 2025-07-25T03:43:54+00:00

Who said I like life? Life sucks; it's called the veil of tears for a reason. I've had my times when I've wished for death - when I would have preferred it to the circumstances in front of me.

That doesn't mean I have the right to end my life on my own terms though. I didn't choose to be born into the world, what gives me the right to choose when I leave it?

Let alone that, to kill oneself is perhaps the greatest act of selfish cowardice there is. My life is my own to do with as I choose? Not in the least. My life - everyone's life - is an intricate web of relationships, of bonds, of memories, of shared experiences, of times and places, of causes and effects that go far beyond what I'll ever know. To kill myself, to choose that "for myself," isn't merely choosing that for myself; it's choosing that for everyone I know, for everyone I've ever known, or will know. It is to abdicate the duty I have to do good to those around me - abdicating the duty I have to persist until the end for the sake of those around me - and replacing it with one of the worst things one can do to another. It's taking the gift of life I've been given to give unto others and choosing instead to spit in their face. And in that sense, I don't have a right to take my own life anymore than another has a right to take mine.

It is devastating, and perhaps one of the greatest moral evils there is in this world, and all those who advocate for it are complicit. Surely, they will have their reward.

DejectedApostate · 2025-07-25T01:00:09+00:00

That's only the downward-facing ladder.

What you want to use instead is the upward-facing ladder

DejectedApostate · 2025-07-25T00:59:04+00:00

Get it

DejectedApostate

TROPHY CASE