Conconully, I hurt my truck!

July-August, 2024

Boy did I screw up! I don’t do that often. I bet you don’t either. 🙂

I went for what I thought was a little drive in the hills and mountains today and ended up on an extremely narrow ATV-only road with no place to turn around, hair-pin corners too tight to back the truck in reverse, a road barely wide enough for the truck, and a straight down drop-off that scared me almost to death. I don’t blame myself too much tho, because the forest service map that I was given did NOT label the road an ATV-only road. I have since emailed them and asked them to post a sign at the bottom of that road, and/or make proper notation on their maps.

On the other hand, even without a sign posted, even just a few hundred feet up that road, I knew I might be in trouble, and I should have backed down (in reverse) backed down the road while I still could, but I didn’t.

No, I didn’t do that, I kept going. I had faith in myself and in my big white truck. In the end, we lived, both of us … me and the big white truck. But the big white truck got banged up, and I got really seriously scared at one point (ok, actually at two points). In the end, we got out ok, but I have since spent some money on repairs to the truck. And I think I had an extra glass of wine that evening to calm my nerves.

So … what happened? Ok here’s the story.

It started out so simple … stories like this usually do start out simple don’t they? Before the trip, I’d read online about a place nearby called “China Wall”, and I wanted to go see it. The morning was absolutely beautiful! How could anything go wrong?

Photo above is the view across the lower reservoir, taken from the edge of the campground, just a few feet from my campsite.

HERE is a really good website about the China Wall. Be sure to click on “More about the Arlington mill” at the bottom of that webpage.

And here is a very good video about the China Wall. Early on in the video he shows a map … notice the town of Ruby off to the right.

So, to start the day, I left my campsite in the big white truck, drove out of Conconully, drove a mile or so down the small highway, then turned right onto a lovely, very well maintained gravel/dirt road that ran along waterways and into the valley between two hills. Here’s a map of where I was, and where I was headed.

The LONG yellow arrow is the peaceful drive up through the valley. Here’s my video of that 6-minute drive.

You’ll see I ended up at the location of what used to be the town of Ruby. There’s nothing there now except the sign.

Here’s a map image that shows more detail.

The three yellow arrows point to hair-pin curves above Ruby. That’s where I was going. That entire road above Ruby was a single track road, no place to turn around, and VERY few places to pull over to let an on-coming truck or ATV pass by in the other direction. Here’s my video of the first hundred yards or so on the road immediately after leaving Ruby and heading up the hill towards the yellow arrows. Just ahead, around the first curve, after I stopped taking the video below, the road actually NARROWS, and the drop off on the passenger side of the truck starts. I should have backed out, but I didn’t.

This next video will give you a really good clue about the road that I got into trouble on. The video below actually starts a good long way AFTER the worst of the road. The road in the video below is WIDE and SMOOTH compared to those hair-pin curves and that road from Ruby up to the red arrows. Keep that in mind while you watch this video. You don’t need to watch the whole video if you don’t want to. The guys do eventually get to China Wall. Mostly I want to show the “good” road that these guys were on, so you might have some idea how bad the road was from Ruby and up to the red arrow section. This video below starts in the trees, up above the hair-pin curves.

I don’t have photos of the road I was on where the hair-pin turns and drop-offs were and where I was so scared.

At one point, part way up the hill, I was so blasted scared by the tight turns and the narrow road and the drop-off on the passenger side (that I couldn’t judge real well from the driver’s seat), that I decided to get out of the truck, WALK back down the two or three miles to town, and then ask someone to come drive my truck out for me, and if THEY fell off the cliff then I wouldn’t be responsible and I would not have died.

But when I stopped, and where I stopped in order to get out and walk back … I stopped and opened the driver’s window and could touch the solid rock wall on my left. The wall was about 12 inches from the side of my truck. Ok, can’t get out there, couldn’t even climb out the window. So I’ll get out the passenger side. I set every brake in the truck, then climbed over the center console in my truck, sweating profusely from fear, then opened the passenger door and looked straight out into thin air. I looked down thinking there would be 2-3 feet of ground such that I could sneak back along the truck and get out. There was about 12 inches! Yes, 12 inches from the edge of the tires to the edge of the drop-off. And the drop-off was a LONG way down. I couldn’t even get out and walk! I had to drive … either forward or in reverse. Well, right behind me was a hair-pin turn, right along that drop-off (that scared me so much that I decided to walk out). But there was no way I could back, in reverse, back the truck around that corner. And I couldn’t get out of the truck. So I had to keep going forward. Breathe, pray, sweat, wonder who will find me if and when my truck went over the edge (it was a LONG way down), etc.

I put the truck in compound low 4-wheel-drive (it already was, but I sure kept it there … not just 4-wheel-drive, and not just LOW 4-wheel-drive, but COMPOUND low, I swear this truck could climb a mountain almost 90 degrees straight up in that gear) … and I truly INCHED around the next tight curve … and then around the next curve … and the next.

I did get up that hill, the truck didn’t fall off the cliff. But I swear I almost got out of the truck to kiss the flat ground and trees once I got up that hill. I still had one more bad time. I got on the wrong road (again, BAD directions on the forest service map!). That road, the wrong road, eventually got so tight that the tree limbs were slamming my mirrors against the truck. I kept thinking there would be a spot to turn around, or another road. I finally gave up “thinking” and backed out that 3/4 mile long road, often with my side mirrors slammed against the truck. This is where the damage to the truck happened. One running board was almost completely ripped off, the other had major damage. There were dents and dings in the body, the paint. After I got home, all of it got fixed. I installed new running boards, and a body shop fixed the dents and dings. I think the big white truck has forgiven me.

In the end, I did get on the right road that headed to China Wall. By then, I was so exhausted and so worried about possible damage to running gear under the truck that I just kept driving so I would get closer to civilization in case the truck stopped running. (It didn’t, she was ok.) And no, I did NOT go back down that hair-pin road to get out. I took the long way around, down another lovely well maintained gravel/dirt road similar to the valley road I took in to Ruby on the first part of this adventure.

Just before I turned off the final (very well maintained) dirt road, where it joins major highway 20 and then the town of Okanogan … just a few feet from that stop sign, I looked to my left …

Right in the middle of the photo above, close to the road, was a buck, staring right at me! He moved a little, but mostly he just kept staring at me.

“Wow, lady, you drove THAT road and lived to tell the tale? Wow.”

I took that road into Ruby, then up the hair-pin hill from Ruby, because that road was a “short cut” to get to China Wall. Next time I’m here, I’ll take the LONG way around!