I rode at treverton before, the mud up there is nasty. It's mostly coal-based mud and it can really trick you, it may look like it's only a couple inches of surface mud or completely dried up but end up being 5 feet deep and impossible to drive through.
If there was half a brain between those guys they could have got that thing out without destroying the jeep. A winch, a shovel, and some common sense goes a long way. I don't know what it is though, it seems like PA's coal region is where Jeep Cherokees go to die, i've seen a few of them just abandoned up there because it wasn't worth the work of trying to recover them once they're so far gone, like that one was after the axle got torn out.