Ed's LJ20 Stuck 40 Years In The Sierra Nevada Mountains.

oh wow operation golden nugget has been causing a little bit of a buzz on the internet and that's good because we're about to tell that story we went down a few months ago to see if this was even possible to recover this vehicle when we filmed it i kind of filmed it like we were going to use like almost none of it i didn't film it to be an episode but by the time we got more involved and we did the recovery i realized that this is too big to put in one video so i'm gonna tell the story of how we went down and did the reconnaissance mission to figure out if we could even complete this mission and here is the story so we got a call oh by the way it's me and i'm incognito i got my jeep doc hat on hawaiian shirt because i'm going undercover i'm not trevor though we're gonna blow his cover trevor why are the colors i got my shirt and my hat all right so here's what's going on we are headed to the airport because we are flying out to meet ed at his one of his gold claims he has got a vehicle out there that has been there for like 20 or 25 years behind a rock slide and we're gonna go look and see if we can get it out so this is the recon mission got my uh recovery expert paul got my camera man extraordinaire trevor and lizzy is the one dropping us off at the airport so the purpose of this trip is to go out and just look and see is this even feasible i believe it's feasible paul believes it's feasible ed's skeptical but either way we're gonna figure out what tools we need what kind of manpower we need we're gonna get this out of here and uh i don't know i heard there's poison oak down there i don't know if i've ever been in poison oak but if i get sick and die i'll be very put out cue the montage [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] if you don't know us very well you're probably not the least bit alarmed that we're heading out on a trip all by ourselves [Music] left-handed rock throwing competitions [Music] [Music] looks like paul chose incorrectly how long have we been here paul at least 30 minutes all right so trevor's finally started to make some progress he's fourth from the first of the line calculate that's 25 more minutes only 25 more minutes and then we'll be able to go find some food trevor what'd you get a jeep did they save us the wrangler what is it compass okay so trevor got us a jeep compass me my beard's a mess from the mask i'll slide up give me some playground some ac going here and yes today so where are we going we're going a red lobster because steak and seafood sounds really good to me paul agrees trevor what do you say do i get to wear a bib he's proud of his bounty over there it's been amazing all right so we're here at our place of lodging all right what do we got here not too shabby all right well i think everybody's going straight to bed it's been a long day all right we'll see you in the morning so we're gonna be meeting ed about two hours away from where we stayed so we got about a two hour drive we're gonna drive up over the mountains and into the wilderness you're being awfully tight-lipped trevor i am too tired i don't really know what to expect today it's gonna it's a whole new adventure yeah it's gonna be rough and rugged i think i'm kind of worried about the miners um that they're gonna make federal let's call us city police i don't know all i've got is movies to go up from [Music] so we just called ed told them we're on schedule i'm pretty excited i've never been with him at a mining camp so fred how's it going matt good to see you again hi friend i'm trevor nice to meet you paul glad to meet you you can kind of get a feel for where the original level of the ground was and they washed all that down the canyon right there into the river that we just crossed down there at that bridge in the late 1800s they choked up these river canyons and out into the flood plain of the sacramento valley they screwed it up for the farmers down there and there was a big war between the miners and the farmers today we're going to be walking in an old ditch that has been opened up by ed and my former mining partner to get his jeep through but we'll be walking about a quarter of a mile through that ditch well we're starting down now down here about half a block my 65 cd caught on fire the plastic fuel pump broke oh and man i had i had some gunny sacks i had a heck of time getting it out i thought i was gonna bring the whole park man you won't need four-wheel drive till we get to the gates probably they got two gates down here in private land all right so it's getting serious now because there's poison oak i don't know a lot about poison oak but it doesn't sound very fun it has the word poison in it an oaky paul says he's immune i have been so far so all right we should put it to the test i'm sure we will by the end of this day it'll be like it's a different strain [Music] all right we'll fill our canteens here got a nice spring over there you did for 40 years i locked a cab yeah okay if i die you're off to school yeah you look like tommy boy if you'd okay i would like a positive identification on poison though so it's got the serrated leafs this is black go ahead and touch it that's blackberry right there okay it's got this you don't have to worry about that you don't have to worry about this um oh look there's some very they're coming out nice when we were up here last week i was going to get something to take home yeah they're good we're gonna have to fight a bear off of them here before long probably day one of alone i could make it at least today too i could make it you're not gonna be the guy that holds the boat back when it gets out of sight that's what we're looking out for that's what you're looking for a stem with three leaves on it here's [Music] man it's not gonna fit yeah we might just put the jeep together mechanically and come do this job and then take it up to robbie's put some skinny tires on oh wow you think you could turn around there oh yeah yeah you can get turned around here so if we bring the banana we're gonna need a chainsaw picks shovels but we're not gonna paint it and do any bodywork first oh yeah i wouldn't so what's going on here just for coming back out so you got a rope to hang on to coming up so he doesn't have to kick it into four-wheel drive have trevor fireman carry him this is about as far as you could probably go i think you might get over some of that we'll look check it out and see that ain't as bad as the rubicon trail now not even close we can drive right down this oh that's a pretty view this is awesome so this is trevor's solution to bringing water shoes yeah right there we locked it put it in up there in that pond and float it down to here yeah me and paul are gonna walk up there and look at that we'll walk up that way that's okay don't walk up there that's okay oh my that does get deep doesn't it oh my um yeah this is already deeper than ed you were right these were about the thorniest trees okay here's the latest development we've been talking we've got to build this road we've got to fix this road to get the suzuki out and if we have a road to get the suzuki out we'll have a road to get the banana in so we have just changed our strategy to coming in and building road as we go solving problems as we go once we get to here like problems are over so we've got 200 yards of struggle yeah a couple of struggles up there in that ditch but submarine your machine we're going to be fine yeah you doing good can you see it right there [Music] oh wow look at that oh it's got doors on it yeah this side that side plywood plywood it's the full top version all right that's not an option she's locked up yep all right look at that little guy this thing's pretty cool [Music] do you think we could skirt the river and cross where it shallow forget about floating it if we're doing all that building that was that part that's too gnarly all right we'll we'll cause it because if we have to float we're not getting the banana to this side that's true i think we can build a road around it we're gonna have to build a road yeah we need to bring a four-wheeler with us something that can run from up to back down quick and easy yeah the steering wheel still connected oh yeah yeah did you make this door yeah good job ed so this hasn't ran in 30 years party 40 years well it's totally locked um there's there's too many important things missing 40 years is too long to leave it in the forest we need to get the banana to this side i agree we need to drive the banana right to it right there paul and i think we have a plan for getting this out of here we're going to be using some of ed's expertise so we're heading out now we've got all the information we think we need and whoa and we're gonna go back and get some lunch what do you think of our plan do you think it's gonna work one way or another if we bring eric you can just lift it it's gonna be fun i'm excited nothing like a challenge do you think it's a hundred percent success rate oh yeah we'll get it out what shape it's in i mean it's not good shape anyway so i just hope there's enough to work with when they get out of there like fix it yeah that's the plan don't eat the berries off the poison oakman i'm trying not to it's not no it's not the apple that i'm looking at look at all those old berries oh yeah paul sees berries hey i'm excited about the berries too every time i go to pick them somebody's like boy you know there used to be a bunch up by matt's house when we were little the himalaya berries they were good yup oh poison help matt don't i know you better let me go get those [Laughter] we're gonna have a picnic down there you find some berries [Music] there's enough tent sites for four and five four five two back there i think so we're gonna have a whole operation out here yeah we're gonna have a tint city yeah there's plenty of camping spots here [Music] okay ed we'll see you when you get back and we'll make a plan thanks again yeah be safe meet you guys yeah good job so 47 years ago ed drove his suzuki j-20 for the last time because he put it away for the winter and then that winter rockslide came and trapped it from civilization it's been there ever since we're gonna go down and get it so this is our crew really quick i know this is boring but here we here we go so this is our crew we've got ed we've got tucker trevor we got paul from fab rats we've got eric we've got lizzy and we've got tom tom we're gonna go get it confidence right there somebody else want to say something thanks for watching

Channel: Matt's Off Road Recovery

Views: 2,249,690

Keywords: Off road recovery, Rescue, Matts off road recovery, Sand Trap, road recovery, Recovery, Difficult rescue, Winder Towing, Towing, Sand dunes, dunes, Jeep, Sand Hollow, utah, off road recovery fails, off road recovery truck, Rescuing, matts off road recovery, morrvair, banana, off road recovery, jeep recovery, off road towing, off road fails, broken down, sand trap, jeep fails, off road sand dunes, operation golden nugget, 40 year rescue

Id: DEM3YITOsgQ

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Mraudiophyl]

Operation Golden Nugget looks like a fun trip. I really wish I could take my 86 tin down those trails. Especially since I live maybe an hour and a half from where they're at.

[u/donrigby]

That's a cool recovery, looks like my lj20v