PALMER -- Alaska State Troopers say a group on a Sunday outing got two military-style "deuce and a half" trucks stuck inside the Knik River Public Use Area upstream of Jim Creek -- and then used a large excavator to extract the trucks.
Troopers cited 40-year-old Michael Ferguson of Eagle River, 28-year-old Steven Brown of Anchorage, and an unnamed male 16-year-old from Anchorage, according to a dispatch posted Tuesday. The teenager is related to one of the men.
It's illegal to operate a vehicle greater than 5 tons inside the public-use area without a permit. The trucks weighed more than 10.5 tons, a troopers spokesperson said, and the excavator likely weighed nearly as much as the trucks.
Each driver was fined $160, troopers said. The three have 30 days to respond to the citation.
The trio were part of a group headed to the Knik Glacier before they got bogged down, according to reports on social media. They were 1 to 2 miles above Jim Creek when the vehicles got stuck, according to an email from troopers spokesperson Megan Peters. Someone drove the excavator in after realizing the group couldn't remove the large trucks.
Wildlife troopers in Palmer were originally contacted by someone who saw the vehicles and described damage to the trail and riverbed. But the trooper who responded reported no damage done.
That's because "high water and equipment limitations" kept troopers from getting to the area, Peters said. "Any significant [damage] would be below the water line and thus not even visible until early winter when the water recedes."
Photos taken by several people in the area show one of the trucks sunk to its axles in mud on a trail next to the water, another with water covering the headlights, and ruts in the trail where the vehicles bogged down.