Thanks to all of you here for the kind words and support. That rollbar was stock, factory equipment.
I was very very impressed on the abilities of these jeeps on those trails, and even more so for it saving my life along with the driver.
It was pretty surreal with it being at night. Once I figured out I was ok, and the driver was ok I immediately thought of the driver's dog "Cujo" that was in the back. He was on my lap the entire ride up Miller trail and jumped in the back of the jeep when we stopped on the trail.
Once the Jeep stopped rolling and I knew we weren't going to roll further and surveyed the scene.
Driver had already gotten out of the jeep....the engine was still running so I shut it off, grabbed the keys and I got out. I told the driver to get on my side of the Jeep IMMEDIATELY in case she decided to roll again and gave him the Jeep keys.
I let my wife know and the other jeep driver know we were ok. My head was bleeding and I was sore but other than that fine. Made sure the driver was ok.
I slid down the rest of the ravine to look for the dog. I looked for a good 20 minutes in the dark at the bottom. Then I got a call out from the driver that he had found the chihuahua in some bushes above where the jeep was. I am going to guess the dog got ejected on the first roll.
I found the driver's hat and a suspension spring (which I carried back up to the top of the trail). Also picked up his Pelican case and dragged that up.
Found my hat in the wreckage later on when we were sliding down and climbing back up to pick up belongings.
Other than the accident the next worst part of that night was getting out of there. The journey back to our camp site seemed to be an eternity.
We still had to traverse the rest of the Miller Jeep trail to get back to the main road. I can tell you I did NOT want to be in another Jeep on that trail, let alone a two door jeep with no back seats and no seatbelts. But I jumped in and we marked the trail on the map on our Iphone where the JK Unlimited went off the trail and soldiered on.
Got to the WORST part of the trail filled with huge rocks and I just said "**** it" I am out of here and walking the rest of this crap until I get to the top. After being in the roll off I just didn't want to be there in the jeep going up. Every bump and sway had me thinking ok here we go again. Did not like that. My wife got out with me and we walked about a quarter mile up the hill until we got to the crest where the jeep was waiting for us with the driver of the yellow jeep and the female driver of the two door that we were all in. (it was at this moment I got upset with myself over not having ANY survival gear....we had brought tons of stuff with us and thought this was going to be a simple traversal of a jeep trail, but it wasn't and none of us had much water, food, etc. The driver of the jeep I was in that rolled was in shorts and flip flops (which got lost in the roll) so he was freezing.
Still had to get back to civilization (it was around 3:00-3:15am) at this point. The drive out and back to the Flying J for gas seemed like an eternity. It was freezing. Both the driver and I were in the back cold but glad to be alive. I think I hit my head on that damn roll bar too many times on the way out. I didn't care I was glad to be out of there. We stopped for gas there and I just did not want to talk to anyone, just wanted to go to sleep and **** in the morning.
I was going to pack up and leave that night but it was way to late for any of that and my wife and I just went to sleep when we got back to the campground.
When I woke up later that morning (Sunday around 8:45am) I thought it was all a bad dream. My wife telling me that it all happened and the lack of the yellow four door jeep in the campground confirmed it.
I'm giving all of you a big virtual hug. Dan and his wife, Mark, Brian, Jason and every one else I have met on the Raptor get togethers. You guys were the first people I thought of the next morning as we were leaving Gorman.
Oh and to the guys and gals on all the trips my wife and I have been on in the Raptor, THANK YOU for being safe and serious about off roading. Not once have we ever had any incident with our trucks in hundreds of miles of being off road. (even 138 miles across the mojave road). That speaks volumes to our events and the people that take part in them.
