Pete,
Thanks for your comments. Actually, the 2,000-lb winch that burned up was a Warne. We have the same winch on the Polaris. The one that went belly up had probably just been used too hard over its twelve years of life.
When we started down the mountain dragging the elk and the loading ramp, we came to a water bar. My buddy stopped with the end of the ramp on top of the water bar, leaving the elk almost level with the bed. The little winch gave one last gasp and managed to get the entire elk into the bed of the pickup.
I took the winch apart back at the camp, and it looked like it might have been salvageable with some new parts. However, we just went ahead and invested in a new 5,000-lb winch.
