So after getting back my friend called and said we should go out driving, so I head over to his place. We chill for a little bit and then head out around town in his 05 STi and played around for a little bit. He's really really happy that he went with a Subaru... So after driving around we decide to take my car out and up my road. We turn off the highway and are a little dissapointed because some of the snow on the aspault has now melted away but we continue onward knowing that there'll be snow on my road and up the mt. We get to my road and turn up and sure enough there are still only tracks from me and the F.S. earlier, no one else on the road
. My friend doesn't take his car on gravel and doesn't ride the backroads with me very often so I was pushing it a little bit harder than usual but nothing over zealous. I know this road and where the places are that don't allow error. We come up to this one turn that I love, one of my bitches and approx. 75 degree total, and I downshift into 3rd. Enter around 3.3k (sorry I don't pay attention to the speedo when I'm pushing it), quick tiny tap on the brake, some gas, and she starts sliding nicely through the turn as usual. Then as I'm still sliding and just lined up to really get into the throttle to power out and straight it up and take off it kicks out of gear. Apparently I didn't get it all the way into gear on the downshift
. With the loss of power my back starts to kickout, I correct, back swings the other way, I still haven't gotten it into gear (hands are busy with the steering wheel) and we slid sideways and then into the ditch as shown. It was a soft landing and I missed all the trees but set the front wheels right into a deep spot with just rotten branches undeneath the wheels. She won't back out and the two comealongs I keep in my trunk fall short of a tree by feet (I've since gotten some nice kevlar straps for an extension and have alleviated the shortness problem). We spend about 30-45 min. on getting it out. If I'd had AWD she'd backed right out I do believe, my next legacy... It was fun and my friend got to learn all about driving in the gravel and no damage was done. 
http://www.filebox.vt.edu/users/lskidmo ... ditch1.JPG (high res. pic)
* The red indicates the truck tracks, he was following his own tracks back down which doesn't really show in this pic but the red indicates the only set of tracks I didn't leave during my multiple passes around this corner that day. The picture was also taken after we'd gotten it backed out a little, initially I was further down.
* The red indicates where the tire tracks are and the smallest circle indicates where my wheels orginally sat. The sticks there with wear on them we put there after we got it out a little to keep it from rolling back. Underneath the sticks it's about 2 inches till dirt.
Now do I feel bad at this? Only in that I had to spend time to push it out. This is only the 3rd time I've ever gone off the road powersliding. I knew nobody was on the road and it was a turn that as you can see and evident by no damage to my car, has some room for error. Had I not lost power to my front wheels I'd been able to power out of the slide, next time I'll make sure she's in gear good. Did it slow me down a little, yeah it humbled me a little as it should have, but I still layed it down on a few of the nice sweeping turns on the way back before I got to the asphault. Just thought I'd share my story of Thursday, I'd done so ealier but didn't get pics developed before today.
