I’m frequently asked if we have any fine art images in our gallery of wild horses.  I’ve photographed horses and the ranching life style but I’ve never had the opportunity to do the research and locate any of the wild horses in the four documented wild horse areas in Colorado. Yesterday, I decided to take the time and travel three hours to the closest wild horse area near Grand Junction, Colorado. The plan was to drive into the back country area on a four wheel drive road and try to locate the horses. All was going well until we got back in the remote area on the two track 4×4 road, when all of a sudden my trusted 1987 Toyota 4Runner decided to stop running. What a sinking feeling.

Now what?  My focus immediately switched from finding wild horses to figuring out how we are going to get out of this remote area before dark and more importantly, before the storm that was supposed to arrive the next day. We had not seen another person all day so I knew I was going to have to figure it out by myself.  This really was a remote area and my cell did not have a signal. The one bit of reassurance was that I was asked to be on the Spot Connect Beta team and I had the beta unit with me. For those that are not familiar with the Spot Connect, it’s a new device by Spot that allows 40 character messages to be sent via satellite when paired with the Apple iPhone.

findmespot.com

I knew in a worse case scenario I would be able to send a series of messages to my best friend who lives near Durango which is about three and a half hours away. Although the situation was serious, it was not drastic. We had the supplies required to spend a night or two if needed. Rather than getting my friend on high alert I decided to fiddle with the truck to try to determine the problem. After 30 minutes and several attempts to start the vehicle with no luck the last resort was to try and push start it. With a lot of heavy breathing and pushing down the slight incline, what do you know, it started! Now all I had to do was keep it running and get back 30 miles to a paved road.

After about six miles all was going well, when all of a sudden the gray glider quit again! This time it stopped on flat ground, push starting was not an option. After about 15 perplexing minutes under the hood, out of nowhere, came an old four wheel drive Chevy Blazer. Turns out Robert (driver of the blazer) was out doing some scouting for his upcoming turkey hunt and he was headed home. I’ve met some of the nicest people in the back country and this was no exception. Robert parked his truck, came over and poked his head under the hood. Together we tried to identify the problem. I was certain it was a fuel issue but Robert continued to poke around and noticed one of the radiator hoses was not pressurized. He slowly unscrewed the radiator cap and wouldn’t you know it was low on fluid. Ah ha…vapor lock? Without hesitation Robert pulls a brand new bottle of antifreeze from his truck and filled the radiator. Now all we had to do is get it started and try once again to make it out. Knowing that I didn’t want to stop if we got it started again we took a few minutes to exchange information. I wanted his address so I could send a token of my appreciation once we got back to civilization. Putting his card in my pocket, closing the hood, and with Roberts help we pushed. The gray glider sputtered to life and we were running again. This time, however, Robert was behind us which gave us the piece of mind that at the very least we would not have to spend the night out in the woods. We had a little over twenty miles to get back to pavement and two hundred plus miles to get back home. In the end, we made it all two hundred and some odd miles with no further problems.

As far as finding wild horses the day was a bust but we did meet a very nice person and realized that always being prepared with survival gear is essential.  We would have been okay, knowing that we had the SPOT Connect with it’s custom messaging capabilities . Not only would our contacts know our exact location we could have also requested they bring parts and tools in hopes we could repair the truck in the field.

You would think the story ends here…but I’m embarrassed to say it doesn’t.  The next day I decided it would be neat to shoot fly fishing images in the snow.  I knew it was snowing in Estes Park, load up the glider…let’s go.  We drove all the way to into Rocky Mountain National Park only to find 30-40 mile/hour winds and blowing snow.  Not good for fly fishing or photography.  Plan B…let’s head back towards Denver and get into the canyons where the wind wasn’t blowing as bad.  Just as we leave the town of Estes Park the truck starts to sputter and eventually it quits again. Yep you guessed it that same sinking feeling was back.  This time we were less than a 100 miles from home but we were still stranded. Fortunately, we were stalled on a hill and we just might be able to get it push started.

If you’ve ever been to Estes Park you know that it is pretty much downhill all the way back to Boulder.  I’m here to tell you it’s pretty much downhill if you are in a running vehicle. When you are trying to push start a vehicle it quickly becomes apparent, it’s not all downhill, there are quite a few flat spots.  After about a mile of pushing I realized the inevitable, it was time to find a pullout and figure things out.  Just like yesterday out of the snow and fog comes a couple who stopped to see if we were okay or if we needed help.

The vapor lock theory was busted, it was in the 30′s or 40′s and snow was falling.  It had to be the fuel filter or fuel pump.  Brendon and Sue our rescuers offered a ride into Estes Park to pick up the needed parts at the local NAPA parts house.

Long story short, I ended up replacing the fuel pump on the side of the road in freezing temp’s (so cold that my fingers could not feel the bolts as I tried to put everything back together).  Brendon and I crossed our fingers as I turned the key in the ignition…badda boom badda bing the gray glider fired right up.

All I could think about was how in the world was I able to drive back 240 miles from Grand Junction the night before when the fuel pump was obviously on it’s last legs.  After many thank you’s, everything was loaded back into the truck and we were headed back to Denver.  Over the course of two days that were originally scheduled for photography I’d not shot a picture (except for my iPhone images) but I met some really nice people, realized the mechanic skills I learned while working on ranches in high school and college still come in handy and survival tools are essential.  You never know when something might happen.  Oh and if you have a smart phone I would highly recommend a SPOT Connect it really gives you a piece of mind when you are out of cell coverage.