Pride is a powerful thing. Some men know when to ask for help, while others can’t stand to be seen as incompetent, foolish, or helpless, taking each challenge as it comes and facing it head-on.

The guy piloting this target=”_blank”>dark-colored TJ definitely seems to fall into the latter category. Having found himself tilted 45-degrees off-center to the right and pitted against thick, soupy mud, our hero is fighting tooth and nail to get himself out under his own power.

We’re not sure exactly how he got to be in this awkward position to begin with, but the sheer will and determination visible here is remarkable. We see what appears to be lockers on both axles, spinning slowly but surely as the mud is churned backwards and the Jeep makes forward progress.

We start to think that his end game is to simply crawl through the rest of the rut, which eventually crests a little further down the way and returns to a normal, flat trail. But that is not the case.

Stuck for good, right? Wrong!

Instead, the front tires are pointed completely to the left, indicating that the driver intends to leave the rut as quickly as possible. Runoff from a mud puddle quickly starts to fill in the rut, as the Jeep stoically plods its way forward.

Things come to a near-standstill at the 0:42 mark, and it looks like all is lost. Miraculously though, the Wrangler actually manages to rise out of the muck, rotating to the left as it does so. Though it’s hard to tell, we can actually see a shimmer for a brief moment stretching in front of the TJ, and a man in a sweatshirt reaches his hands out to touch what can only be a winch cable.

The last few seconds record the Jeep triumphantly making its way out and onto solid ground. It almost looked like it made it out under its own power, but we’re still plenty impressed by the overall spectacle.