Hitchin' a ride

December 6, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Four men with 450 feet of cable winched a Ford Expedition up a steep slope by the Glenn Highway Sunday, 11 days after the vehicle hurtled through a guardrail.

On Nov. 23, Stephanie Brenden, 32, of Glennallen, was driving the 1998 Expedition back home from Palmer with her two young children when she lost control of the sport-utility vehicle, according to Alaska State Troopers. The SUV went over the guardrail at Mile 94.6 and headed down an embankment, coming to rest with the taillights pointed toward the Matanuska River, much closer to the river than the road.

Brenden and the children, 18 months and 4 years old, reported only minor injuries, although they were hypothermic before anyone found them hours later.

Matanuska Towing and Recovery hauled the Ford up, out and back to Palmer Sunday.

The recovery meant taking chain saws down the embankment and cutting off the stumps of trees clipped by the Ford, according to Darin Minkler, one of the owners of the towing company. The vehicle was moving with such velocity that the trees didn't stop it, and there were a lot of them, he said.

&#8220One spot was almost vertical,” Minkler said. &#8220For the first 200 feet, the guy running the truck couldn't see the wrecked car at all. He was winching blind and we were down below, on radios, giving him directions.”

When Minkler went out to look at the job a week before, he was amazed that Brenden was able to walk at all, he said, and the wreck was very close to the river. It was a tough climb coming back up.

&#8220The hardest part is that we're all fat and out of shape,” he said.

That stretch of the Glenn Highway, from Victory Bible Camp to about Caribou Creek, gets a lot of wrecks, according to Phil Blydenburgh, battalion chief with Sutton Fire and Rescue. Anytime the roads get slick, you can expect at least one call on the steep, winding road, he said.

Blydenburgh was one of the responders on the night the Expedition went down the hill.

&#8220We didn't get the page until about 1 a.m.,” he said. &#8220It was pretty cold. It is really steep and it was hard coming back up. I give all credit to the husband who found them. Without him, it would have been a very different outcome.”

It wasn't the most difficult recovery made by MTR, according to Minkler. A few years back, he needed a crew of seven and more than 800 feet of cable to retrieve a vehicle in the same area.

&#8220Recoveries are fun,” Minkler said. &#8220They're a change of pace.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.