When you’re heavy, recovery doesn’t get any easier.
Travelling to Western Australia in 2015 we disconnected the caravan and drove to check out a large Rock. On driving across the grassed area I said to the wife, “Geez that’s a bit doughy underfoot.”
So when retracing our route I decided to drive on the same track but just go a bit quicker. Unfortunately, that didn’t work as the 2300 kg back axle sunk to the housings rather rapidly.
Also No.1 driver didn’t engage the free-wheeling hubs as I should have and therefore I had no 4WD which didn’t help, but I didn’t think it would be that bad.
So after owning a Hydraulic Red Ox Winch for 15 yrs and never used on ourselves, with all the new winching gear never used, we proceeded to setup all the gear.
The extra long extension strap, a snatch strap, another short strap and nearly every bit of winch cable except for the last 8 wraps around the Winch Drum to reach the one and only dead buttress root tree in the area.
So, after an hour of setup and winching we were out, albeit everything covered in thick gooey mud.
The area we had driven across was actually like a peat moss bed and the first crossing had squashed and disturbed the ground and driving across on the same tracks as the entry exacerbated the problem as it had softened the ground.
Anyway after all that winch training exercise, my wife says, “so if we had some of those Max Track thing is would it have been easier and quicker than using the winch”.
All I said was definitely yes, but I’ve been wanting a set for a while and now is a good reason to get a set.
So with the OK from my better half it would be great to win a set of MAXTRAX!
This might make for more enjoyable offroad adventures in the future.
PM4X4 Comment
The reader doesn’t say, but he could have aired down if he was concerned about sinking it. This is also another example of where carrying lots of gear and knowing how to use it saved the day. And after 15 years…finally a self recovery – one of those times when the investment is worthwhile, it’s amazing what good value even the most expensive recovery gear seems like when you’re stuck!
And yes, MAXTRAX would definitely have helped, either recovering the vehicle without the winch, or making the winch recovery easier.
This Reader’s Write story was submitted as part of our Win a Set of MAXTRAX competition. We will publish the rest of the (publishable!) entries over the next few days and then pick a winner. We have also published a MAXTRAX product review.
MAXTRAX come in all sorts of colours, although, it must be said that orange is the coolest, or so we reckon…
