Undercarriage damage to light truck in rocky terrain

[vivaine3]

Hi everyone

Comments

[six_dollar_baby]

It would be more than enough to have him pop a tire, and be caught without a spare. Running the truck up on a large rock could shred the tire, and be a really obvious clue that the kid didn't just run off.

[channonyarrow]

This. I don't specifically know the ground-height clearance of an F-150, but that would have to be a stupidly large rock to high-center it on something. My brother has property in south-central Utah (right by Canyon Reef National Park) and my experience has been that you generally have enough starlight and lack light pollution enough to see whether something is really much too big to try to go over. A lot could be done with shadows on rocks and how they change how things look, but it seems like a lot of effort to set up a scene that I don't get the sense is supposed to be pivotal at the time the reader gets to it.

[lolmac]

I have nothing to contribute to the discussion, but I am squeeing with insane joy at your icon.

[indian_skimmer]

From experience- relatively easy to judge if a rock is small enough to go over, *really* easy to misjudge if a hole is too deep to go through...

[channonyarrow]

Yup, totally agree. (Though I did high-center a Saturn sedan on snow once. That was simple - I just had to wait five minutes!)

[vivaine3]

Thanks for the details. Canyon Reef, Bryce Canyon, and San Pete county are some of the near-by areas. I'm shoehorning in a fictitious county as my location so general area descriptions can vary. Good to know about the night-time light levels too. I wasn't sure about visibility.

[channonyarrow]

It's really surprising how much light you get out in the desert from the sky, actually. I mean, i say that because I'm from Seattle and we have both a lot of overcast and a lot of light pollution. But I swear, you get really, really bright light from the stars, and there are next to no streetlights of course, so there's nothing at all to interfere with it as your eyes adjust to the darkness. I was also in Death Valley in 1997, I think it was, when Comet Hale-Bopp came through and it was amazing. I remember coming up over the ridge out of Death Valley and just seeing the comet against the sky; it was bright in a way I had never, ever expected it could be. Of course, I also distinctly remember that other than the headlights, there was precisely one artificial light in my field of vision. and it was a ways away

[vivaine3]

Thank you! That works too, but I'm looking for a little more damage for financial reasons. Tension because he can't afford major repairs.