Here's the story of the Commander. This was the owner's second trip out. They smartly opted out of the Red Elephant Hill Trail and met us at Bill Moore Lake, along with two other rigs. At one point early on when he was not getting traction, I asked whether he was in 1st gear, and he indicated he had no gear or transfercase selection since it was AWD. He struggled up most of the trail, and was, in fact, pulled a large portion of the way by the little 4-cylinder Toyota pickup with a rear locker, pictured earlier. Go Yota! The transmission was overheating. We talked the gentleman into parking the Commander; he rode with the Toyota owner, and the passenger rode with me. We completed the loop and returned to the Commander. The 14 rigs continued our decent and then heard through the CB that the Commander rolled. I was about 6 rigs ahead, and there were a number of rigs behind, but only 1 saw it happen.
Fortunately, the driver and passenger were OK; albeit shaken up. After we checked things over, they opted to continue down to the bottom, where insurance could assess the vehicle. My understanding of what happened is that they could not get geared low enough, started to break free, and the owner, by his own words pulled the e-brake to stop, which whipped him sideways into the roll. The really unfortunate thing is that this is the owner and his wife's ONLY vehicle.
I've noticed in the trips that I've taken here in Colorado that a large number of people here think that because they have 4WD (in this case AWD), they are automatically qualified to a) take their rig offroad, and b) take it up and down the flippin' Rockies. There is very little caution, planning, and experience on the part of a lot of the wheelers out here. I don't know if he really had no input on the gearing and/or offroad modes of the vehicle, or simply didn't understand it. He probably shouldn't have had the Commander on the trail in this situation, and the trail leaders should probably have warned against it.
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