An International Adventure

Once upon a lifetime ago…

I had an International Scout 4×4. For anybody unfamiliar with these old brutes, they would climb a tree if you hit it just right. My Scout was baby blue and was actually in really good shape, when I first got my hands on it that is.

The weekends were always booked. A case of beer or two in the back of the scout with me and my friends on a four wheeling adventure to just try and get the scout stuck. I have had that scout at one time or another on nearly every strip road in southern Raleigh County. I got a lot of enjoyment out of taking my friends four wheeling and bringing them back home again. Spending so much time in the woods with that old scout created some interesting memories.

People had a bad habit of bailing out on me. Once in the head of Rock Creek we had just turned a horseshoe curve on our way up the mountain. This was in the right fork of the hollow. I had been this way on a motorcycle but never in a vehicle. After making the horseshoe turn we are looking at a very steep road. I’m not sure the angle but about halfway up the scout stalled. The angle was so steep that the gas drained out of the bowl and it couldn’t get gas. (this was a carburetor)

Having three other people in the scout with me, when it died, I was suddenly all alone. I can’t blame them for bailing out that time. With both of my hands gripping the bottom of the steering wheel, I had both feet on the brake pedal to keep the scout on the hill. If it had started sliding, I wouldn’t have been able to stop it. The scout would have slid right over the hill in the curve. As it was, I was letting the brake go enough to let the scout drift back just a few inches which would cause it to slide a couple of feet. It took me about a half hour to move fifty feet. But I did make it back to level ground where after priming the carburetor, the scout started right up. Not to be outdone by this hill, I went to the left fork of Rock Creek and went to the top of the mountain and came back down the right fork. The hill was no problem coming down as the gas was to the front of the bowl. I wonder if I could have backed up the hill?

Another time everybody bailed we were also in Rock Creek. Well to be more precise, we were on the gaswell road between Rock Creek Lane and Rock Creek. We were on the lane side coming over to the Rock Creek side. It was raining pretty good. Some of those old roads can get like ice. In situations like that it doesn’t matter a whole lot how many tires are pulling. The road has a few ditches in it for diverting water. I’ll have to get a picture of one but what it amounts to is a dozer goes up the road and he just cuts the road leaving the dirt scraped up as a mound. If your vehicle doesn’t have a whole lot of ground clearance then you had to be careful how you crossed these ditches. I had never had an issue with the scout and ground clearance. But I was always cautious anyway. So I angled the nose of the scout over the mound to keep one tire on it all the time. We were turning to the right so the right front passenger tire was the first to clear the mound as soon as the left front got to the bottom the whole front end of the vehicle started to slide towards the edge of the road.

That was not good. The edge of the road was a mountain that was nearly straight down. Once again I find myself alone when the scout starts to slide. There was nothing I could do but ride it out. When the scout stopped the drivers side front tire was hanging in mid-air. It was scary but I wasn’t really in danger. I still had three tires on solid ground. I put the scout in reverse and eased it back up onto the road with no problem whatsoever. After watching me maneuver over the ditch at a different more aggressive angle, everybody climbed back in and we continued on our way.

This old scout is going to turn in to my longest post ever, but its fresh on my mind so I’m going to continue to bore you with at least two more incidents.

There was actually one time where everyone bailed in to the scout. Years ago before Massey got their grubby paws on Marfork, there was a place right on top of the mountain where someone had placed a picnic table. It was definitely a four wheeling adventure just finding the place. One night my buddies and I got there well after midnight. That was a thing for me, I liked to go four wheeling at night. Anyway, we were at the picnic table drinking by headlight. It was extremely peaceful when from out of the dark comes a very deep sounding growl. It was coming from behind the scout. Not directly but generally. I find myself alone as everybody runs for the scout. If I hadn’t hurried up and got in I believe to this day they would have left me there. I didn’t need encouragement though. I’ve seen all kinds of scary movies and ultimately the things that growl in the dark. My alcohol fueled imagination gave me all the incentive I needed. Funny thing now that I think about it. That was the last time I visited the table. It was probably a bear… after turning the scout around, we never did see what created the sound. To be honest, it was after midnight, I was on top of the mountain, I didn’t want to see it…

And then there was the time a friend and I took the scout fishing. Fishing is something else I have always enjoyed. The cool thing about the scout was that now I could go to places that I would normally have to hike in to. Something I have always found interesting is when you are fishing a river from one side, the other side always looks better. Or a lake, people will go pay thousands of dollars for a bass boat that will do ninety miles an hour take it to a lake and fish ten feet from the shore. Anyway, we found ourselves in that situation.

We had parked the scout by the road and just went over the hill to fish in Big Coal River. But, we soon realized, the other side would be much better. But how are we going to cross. “I know, we’ll take the scout I know a place down river,” my friend said. I was game so we loaded up turned around and about a half mile down the road there was a place to cross. At least there was a road that led over the hill into the river. Sitting at the top and looking at the river it looked real smooth and not very deep. The water was clear so it was easy to see the smooth bottom. But, since it was clear it was hard to determine the depth of the water. I figured the scout had made it through worse so off I went. I was very proud of the scout. It sat about two feet off the ground and in the middle of the river the water was halfway up the doors. I thought for sure we would drown the scout. But it just trudged right through the river.

I finally did kill the scout on a cold winter day in a mud hole on flat land. Tore the transmission right out of it trying to get out. I kinda lost heart in it after that. The next vehicle I would destroy would be a vintage Mustang MachI. I’ll have to tell that story some day.