Well the ice fishing has sucked lately and its been way too windy to call coyotes so I decided to go check out some new country I have been meaning to look at. You can guess what happened (twice today) Luckily, I am a self proclaimed expert at getting vehicles unstuck, and actually enjoy it sometimes. Here's how:

Like with handguns, automatics are for queers. Get a manual and thank me later.

As much as I love my Power Stroke for pulling trailers, a 1/2 ton (if not a small bed) is so damn much lighter and easier to tug out of a nasty spot. I know only the rear is chained, I had already taken the front chains off when I decided to get a pic.

Have the right tools: always carry 4 chains, a tow chain, a tow strap with loops NOT hooks, a highlift jack, a shovel, a sledgehammer, an ax and whatever else you feel necessary. I don't know how anyone who owns a pickup can stand to not have a quality toolbox in the back.

When you're dead serious about getting somewhere, chain up.

Winches are neat, but expensive and more expensive when cables fray and eventually break. Here is my solution:


In Wyomings anal orifice there's not too many trees to hook to, so a 4 foot crowbar drove deep into the ground suffices. I have had these pull out, but the ground gives so no rocket effect into your windshield occurs. This set up works way better than a guy would think. It needs to be drove completely into the ground so the chain is as low as possible. I didn't think to get pics while actually winching myself out, so these pics are a mock setup after I got back to the main road.
[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/inmanta/DSCN0506.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/inmanta/DSCN0505.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/inmanta/DSCN0502.jpg[/img]
The only problem here is getting my anchor point out of the ground sometimes takes longer than everything else combined. Usually you have to use the highlift again.
[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/inmanta/DSCN0507.jpg[/img]

Good luck out there and I hope this was informative.

Damned good job!
Reminds me of why I moved to warmer climes when I started ageing.

Great resourcefulness! After OCS my first job as a 2LT in the mid-1970's was as a Service and Recovery platoon leader in a DS Maintenance Company. Of course we had the M578 Light Recovery Vehicle and M88 Heavy's as well as winches, etc. Sometimes field expediency is the only way - good read!

Back as kid in SE Georgia I prowled the swamps in an old jeep, sometimes a big old heavy Dodge Power Wagon (The original, ours was a 1953). Both winch equipped.

The weapon of choice when stuck with no trees near was a good sized sand anchor (Danforth to the yacht crowd). Shackle it up to the winch cable, start the flukes in the mud, and you had a good dead hold.

Just to be sure to put a long trip chain on the back end of the flukes, often it would sink out of sight on a stout pull. Ours had a ring welded on just for that purpose.

Thanks all...
Just as an aside, all that crap fits into a tool box with room for more junk.

for soft ground, carry 2 of these. Sink them several feet apart with both leaning back. Chain from the top of the front one to the bottom of the back one (you might need a clamp or something to keep the chain from sliding up), then hook your winch hook to the bottom of the front one. It will at least double the strength of your anchor.
You can also use a couple cut down steel fence posts. The vanes will add a lot of strength in sand or mud.

As a 91B (formally 63B) going to H8 school has to be one of the best things I ever did. Now serve as the recovery section squad leader and love it!

Love seeing you go old school with the chains, high lift, and crowbar pullbuddy setup. Great thread, ill have to dig up some "stuck" photos.

Thanks for an informative and interesting post.

Heck ya...post em up!

With the setup in the pictures I will guarantee you that you would not get the length of the pickup around my place even if you spent a month trying to. Up here the only thing that will move far with a motor is an iron dog or a tracked dozer that will doze its own path.

We have frost with more depth to it than what it in the pics with the pickup driving around on the dusting of snow there. And at -60F you would break one of those chains or break the tiedowns on the pickup, I will guarantee that.

so you don't drive vehicles around your place?

I've only been to a couple places in AK, but the areas I went to that did have roads were no different than around here.

If it was -60 I would just stay indoors for the most part.

Anyway if you read the post, where the pics were taken was not where I was stuck at. I was in about 3 foot of snow and the ground was frozen for at least several inches deep.

oh that brings back Lejeune memories...

That MTV ended up taking and HEMTT Wrecker and a couple of back hoes to get out

Here was a doozie outside of Haditha.

hahaha No roads here. Only what I have dozed back into the area not far. But even on my strip you would not be able to use your set up to drive the length of the strip. But I can see where you could in your area.

Whoops!!

Loved getting the call when someone has done something like that. The only two vehicle rollover/overturns I've worked I didn't have a phone/camera with me.

By the way, off topic, but finding a stick shift full size truck is getting rediculous hard to do. Nice Ram, got a hemi?

To damn much like work for me. Did enough of that in the military.

No, I had to go to a 3/4 ton Power Wagon to get the Hemi with a standard. Kind of sucks but I had to go with the 4.7L to get a manual 1/2 ton.

I looked long and hard for a standard tranny when I was shopping for a diesel. I jumped on the 1st one I found in descent shape, but I definetly paid a premium for it. Its a 99 Power Stroke with the 7.3L. It was worth the hassel.

Good for you, are most of your visitors actual people, or do they just show up in your head from time to time

Most of the visitors are wild creatures and only a few wild women. hahaha

do the wild women charge mileage to get all the way to your basement?

<grin>

Looks like your setup works well. Not sure how it would do in SC red clay gumbo.

Thanks for taking the time DH to post the pics and share your info.

I am beginning to understand why some of the guys here treat you the way they do.

You live where you say you can't get a vehicle to and then you disparage him and his tactics getting a vehicle unstuck, stating it wouldn't work where you are.

That is like reading a guy describe how to catch gators in the Louisiana swamp and you bitch that his approach sucks because it won't work where you live. What an asshat.

Gotta love that place. I spent 16 1/2 months operating out of Al Asad. Seen a few Humvees buried to the doors in that crappy mud, and a giant washer/dryer system mounted to a semi-flatbed loose a couple axles (4 of 8 if I remember correctly) in a Wadi and require the huge Connex Wretch to leave Al Asad (under HEAVY escort) to come out and lift it up onto an even bigger flatbed trailer. Good times.

Buy a Ford, problem solved.

No. I just did not want to see people running out and buying equipment that won't work unless they are in very light duty environments. Some might see this and run out to the hardware store right off and think they are tooled up good enough to take on nature.

Al Asad...what a dive. I was based out of Camp Ripper for a while with RCT-2's PSD. The entire AO Denver is quite the $hit hole.
Make that the whole country of Iraq.

BS!!!

You wanted to attract attention to yourself and self-proclaimed "tougher-than-anyone-else's" locale.

If you wanted to "save" people from their own poor judgment, you simply could have stated, "I don't want to see people running out and buying equipment that won't work in their environment."

You are just a demeaning attention whore.

Dude, no one cares what you think. I'm starting to doubt you're even in AK. Did you get that dozer to your roadless strip by barge or did you fly it in piece by piece?

This isn't a "very light duty environment". I've done this same thing with my old 1 ton cummins. I've also hauled around and manuvered M198 and M777 155mm artillery pieces using nothing more than humvees and chains through Camp Lejeune mud and the sands of Arabia. Try that at your airstrip.

Good topic. Lots of good info with great pictures to boot. Thank you for the information.

I've got a Ford Ranger 2X4 with a new locking rear differetial. I'm lucky enough to not get stuck because I mostly bird hunt, and don't try to make the truck go somewhere it wasn't meant to be in the first place. Bought my wife a Jeep and we use it for major storms and emergencies.

I've been unfortunate enough to be "volunteered" by my old man to help fools who got stuck because they decided to drive through the muck and didn't have the skill or equipment equal to the challenge. Just another reason we didn't get along and I quit big game hunting for 25 years.

Brilliant thread dog hunter! Since moving out west i've always wondered what a guy is to do if he gets stuck in the muck where there is no trees around to help jerk himself out.... This makes alot of sense. And** i like the idea of how you pull your anchor out of the ground.

Will have to find one of my pictures, where we were stuck in a clearing that looked solid, but wasn't.
But here is why we use ATV's in some areas, as the old roads have eroded away.

Dog Hunter - thanks, very good post and should be helpful to those who may not have operated in such circumstances. Winter here often calls for us to do such stuff and, although our equipment array may differ a bit, it is essentially the same stuff (I do carry two cut-off fence posts). And, did get a couple of good thoughts/methods from your post - thanks again.

It is INDEED a great thread, and there's a bit of "serendipity" in play. There's a common, low budget, Northern Tool Hand Winch , and a coupla' other pieces, boxed and waiting out in the shop. The damn WIND is supposed to quit tomorrow, and once I get the snapped off flagpole reinstated (it's the CHITS not having the colors up),.....A "Project" for the range is going to fall together.

Title : Multi Purpose Rigging Device

I'll get some photos of some NEAT gear, already up and running, and as well,.....something I really don't recall hearing about here,.....

1,000 lbs of line pull, and a coupla' snatch blocks can start looking pretty damned effective, when one has REAL "Recovery savvy".

Seeing as how this thread just REEKS of "Recovery Savvy" (outside of some barking and yowling out in the dark somewhere), I'd like to throw in and contribute what I can.

Ma�ana

GTC

Al-Asad was nice I thought.

I lived in Tripoli Village on Tower road at Al-Asad for 9 months before I relocated to Talil.

As far as places in Iraq goes, Al-Asad was about as good as it gets with maybe Balad being a little nicer.

The nice thing about Al-Asad was that it was so remote, that you hardly ever had to worry about incomming.


Great thread, BTW! I bet those chains could tell some stories!

Yeah, but they'll BREAK at -60 F.

Ya' gotta wonder what kinda' drugs inspire THAT kinda' gibberish.

We had a GREAT "Tire Chains Thread" here a coupla' years ago, Jeff Olson had gotten a feed truck a bit "Low slung" and the thread just went pages.

GOOD subject to keep rolling,....this

GTC

Cool shot!

Devil da gone dog... If you wanna avoid this mess, by a yoder. They're made in Tehaas, dontcha know?

Will 223 pistol ammo bounce off grizzly's head?

Boy, does that sound familiar.



Back in the Stone Age (pre-cell phone, anyway) my brother, a friend of mine and I found a place like that while deer-hunting in SW Georgia. After finding that innocent-looking stretch of grown-over logging road, we then spent 4 hours getting away from it. We had a one come-along and a chain and one good anchor rod to pull his 2WD 3/4-ton pickup out of trouble.

All the while we were there my brother was wishing for his BILs 4WD Jeep truck. As it turned out his BIL and three friends spent seven hours that day with two come-alongs doing the same thing.
From that I concluded that 4WD means you can go 4 times as far from help and get stuck 4 times as bad as with 2WD.

I would curl up and die if I didn't have 4 wheel drive, but that's just me.

One thing I should mention is that a strap should NOT be used to when "winching" out. If that thing breaks it could be just as bad as a winch cable snapping and recoiling back at ya. Use a good solid logging chain. A heavy duty strap is used when another rig is there to tug on ya. When doing that a chain will jerk your frame to pieces. Snatch blocks are always good to have too. Their usefullness is only limited by your creativity.
For my heavy duty pickup, I have a 6 foot long old tractor axle I welded some wings on (to stop the shackle from sliding over the top) that I drive into the ground with a sledge hammer. I use it in the same fashion as the heavy duty crowbar above. I don't know if the crowbar would hold up to the weight of my diesel.

anyhow, I'm off to go ice fishing. You all have a good day.

were you actually stuck in those pics or did you just take the opportunity for a photo technic demo.

I was not stuck. I had already got out and was back down at the main road and had taken the front chains off when I decided to get some pictures. That's why the crowbar is not drove completely into the ground. It needs to be when actually in use.

that made me laugh

Call AAA!










Oh, wait maybe that's why we kept getting stuck???

grin

I learned early on that getting stuck is only a part of getting anywhere you wanted to go. My dad did it really well with only a 2 wheel drive truck.

I have been around Montana all my life trying to go places that weren't meant to be traveled. I have come to a point that I don't want to get that stuck anymore and use my head instead of a recovery system.

All the tools mentioned have a place in serious off road travel. We used to have about the same equipment in a Toyota Landcruiser, we hunted all over with. Even with all that stuff, when you are belly deep in a bog in central Montana, you are more stuck than you can get out without help.

We spent a night in the Landcruiser about 15 miles from the nearest ranch, thank goodness the rancher came looking for us in the morning, when we didn't return the previous night. We still refer to the bog as "Easter Swamp", seeing that it was Easter morning when he finally found us.

This shows some of the unnecessary acts you can commit as you try to go some of those places that require recovery tools. It seems Russ wanted to go up this forest road when we didn't have a chain saw, but I did have a M-1 Garand to shoot through the tree to weaken it, then pull it in two with a winch so we could proceed...

I really did myself one year in the M-Bow mountains.
Late spring, day before there had been about two inches of sideways so it coated all the snow. I'm seeing a "highway" over the mountains from the Medicine Bow to the Powder River side.
Map Didn't Say Closed In Winter. No Gate.
So there I am, beautful WYoming spring morning, tootling up a nice gravel road, into a shallow cut, and FLOOMP.
This was a 1965 Ford Econoline van....the cut had filled with snirt so the smooth, smooth gap between the sage was NOT a dusting of two inches -- but three feet.
Lucky for me there was a ranchstead a couple of miles back, nobody home but I found a shovel.
Dig dig dig dig dig dig dig. Finally got the unit upright on the ground. Then I dug a ramp.
While I'm digging, along comes a PBY on SAR. He starts circling, I walk out in the snow and write NO. He waggles and flies off.
Temperature drops, ramp freezes, at Oh Dark Morning I drive off the snirt bank and AROUND through the frozen sage back to civilization.
Brought the shovel back to the rancher, paid him ten bucks rent.
Bought a shovel in Casper going the long way around to Douglas. Still haven't had a chance to go back to see what lay ahead.

I think one thing that is being forgotten is running real tires. Real tires will get you out of a lot of situations compared to highway tires labeled "all terrains."

Anyone that is serious about getting off the beaten path should run some real rubber, regardless of being prepared with winches, jacks, shovels etc.

Come work in the oil field !
Nice pics and gear, but Pales to where we go and what we do, and how bad our roll overs are. Pics later.

I work in the oil fields for the BLM here in WY and must say all the oil company rigs are huge 3/4 and 1 ton diesels. When things get to gumbo I see those big ol' rigs having all kinds of trouble. All they have to do is pull off a main road and they stay there till it dries or someone tugs them out. I rarely see them towing anything that requires a diesel. If they do its usually some work truck bigger than a 1 ton if not a semi.

I was so happy when I got a 1/2 ton for a work pickup. It is so damn easy to manhandle compared to a superduty or cummins when your digging yourself out.

Shrapnel, thats good stuff. Thats what I like to see!

I have some good snapshots of two 5 ton wreckers recovering a full 5000 gallon fuel tanker and cab in Northern Italy on a NATO exercise in 1986. I was the CO CDR of the DS MT CO that recovered the tank truck (belonged to the Service and Support Company of an Infantry BDE). That was a mission to remember - now just to find the damn pictures!

Impossible now in a half ton, I believe.

Not to intentionally flame oil field workers, but few of those areas are known for the world's best when it comes to driving. Driving a company rig vs. driving your own and also being aware that when you are on your own, you can't be as wreckless and rely on someone else following right behind you and bailing you out.

I believe the intent of this thread is an awareness of just how alone you are when you are hunting and how necessary it is to be self reliant and be able to get yourself out of an ugly situation you may have gotten into. Hunting rabbits, we have gotten into some hairy situations that required more work than some put into elk hunting...

I drive a 22 ton rig up truck. We pull lots of vehicle out of ditches, soft spots on locations, and turn overs out. Trust me, a chained up rig up truck can go almost anywhere. Least til it gets high centered, then nothing can move. It's amazing just how much traction chains give you. BTW, I just took my chains off. I'm moving a drilling rig today.

You're damn right chains make a difference. It's crazy, especially with v-tread chains. I don't use them real often, but there always there when needed.

Not to divert from discussions concerning how to get stuck rigs unstuck, but here is another shot of the 7 ton near Haditha with an Army Psyops Sgt I got to know pretty well. I don't remember how they got it out, but am sure it required support from Al Asad as well.