Thanks again for the advice everyone. Most of the mud you see on the car wasn't from splashing through the mud, it was from sitting in it spinning the tires trying to get out. I like dry trails far more than mud as well. This seemed like one of those situations where there was no really good place to go around, because that's deffinately the method that I prefer. I tried to go to the right of the really big rut, but, with these tires I have almost zero directional control once I get in the mud. The X went to the right into a big rut with basicly a vertical wall on either side of it. For a while, I could go back and forth in the rut, but I just couldn't get the X to climb out of it. It was going straight regardless of where the front wheels were pointed.