Ben and I experienced a bit of offroading hubris when Ben "high centered" his Cruiser on a forest road on the way to Greenie Peak,NM. Engineer Fix helpfully explains this phenomenon as follows: "When your car gets stuck on top of snow and is high-centered, it means that the vehicle's undercarriage is making contact with the snow, suspending the wheels and preventing ground contact. This situation requires extensive shoveling to remove the snow from under the vehicle before it can be moved again."
A note of caution to other offroaders - walk that bit of snowpack before you take your vehicle on it. Our snowpack started shallow and quickly increased to knee deep snow.
Rocking back and forth, snow chains and runner boards did not help. A few hours of shoveling did not really help. (A few hours more would have been needed!) Then, thank Jesus (this was Ben's out loud remark), some adventurers coming down the mountain helped us out. They were riding in side by sides, a type of ATV that practically floats on snow. They took time out of their day to tow us off the slab of snow, and help Ben do a thirty point turn to have the car facing forward so Ben could more easily head back the way we had come. They even waited to make sure we got to the snow free portion of the road. They seem very amused with our predicament, probably noticing the Texas plates. They knew snow, and we, sadly, did not. Getting stuck like that cost us three hours of anxiety and physical effort, and I did a lot of shoveling at high altitude (about 10,000 feet) which takes the wind out of you. Not recommended.
We never did make it to the top of Greenie Peak, but I also was never so grateful to make it back to a paved road (and a gas station bathroom). A shout out to my wonderful husband Steven, who we contacted remotely via our Garmin to see if we could get assistance. Steven lined up Officer Martinez to help us before our good samaritans showed up. Officer Martinez was pleased his services were not needed.
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