Your Pic of the Day
- Thread starter DAA
- Start date
Sprinkman
Well-known member
"What the heck, no food tonight!"
Planning ahead pays dividends. Receiver mounted winch when you just want out and forward is not an option. 
Clarence, the full story of that situation is one that you had to be there to really get it. It was a lot worse than it looks. Would be a long story to try and tell it full.
Short version is not very short.
To anchor that winch required climbing that extremely steep, very loose slope on the right. Climbing it was a bitch. Climbing it with a sledge hammer, anchors and chain was a bigger bitch. Pulling winch cable up was downright dangerous.
We had to re rig a bunch of times. The shallow bedrock made it really hard to find a spot to drive anchors deep enough to hold. We tried strapping around pinnacles in the cliff face and it just pulled the chunk of sluffy shale cliff off... Anyway, up and down that slope a bunch of times trying to get the anchor to hold. And also in getting it to hold, from either the front or back end, but finding out that pulling from one end or the other was pivoting the other end of the truck off into "goodbye was nice to know you, hope you like living at the bottom of a river" land for the truck.
I can't hear rattlesnakes. At all.
At one point as I'm trying to get up that hill and not down it with a bunch of recovery gear, a good sized for this country rattlesnake rolled by right in front of me. And I do mean rolled by. Steep up there. He was in kind of an incomplete hoop and literally rolled like a hoop right past me.
Few rigging attempts later, I'm doing the same thing but Steve was up the hill with me. We were a good 20 yards apart. I'm trying to traverse with all the recovery gear. Steve yells Stop! Stop! Stop! This is not even close to the first time he's told me to Stop! like that. Means he can hear a rattlesnake by me.
And so on.
Didn't get it done that first day. Setup cots in the middle of that cobby shelf road and went to sleep. With the sound of rocks falling off the slope and visions of rattlesnakes filling our heads. Shortly before I drifted off the sleep I heard a decent size rock coming down the slope and heard the loud PING as it nailed my Yetti rambler sitting on the ground ten feet away.
Middle of the night, it's raining. Steve bless his heart got up and put up the tent by himself right there in the middle of that cobby shelf road. Didn't wake me up until it was done and all I had to do was drag my bedding in out of the rain.
Next day we finally got it rigged right. Pulling from both ends at the same time. Lot of work. But it worked.
That night, after getting out of there and having an amazing day of exploring and shooting the 'ell out of rock chucks; camp, with grilled ribeyes and quite a few long sips of the whiskey for me, was especially enjoyable.
- DAA
Short version is not very short.
To anchor that winch required climbing that extremely steep, very loose slope on the right. Climbing it was a bitch. Climbing it with a sledge hammer, anchors and chain was a bigger bitch. Pulling winch cable up was downright dangerous.
We had to re rig a bunch of times. The shallow bedrock made it really hard to find a spot to drive anchors deep enough to hold. We tried strapping around pinnacles in the cliff face and it just pulled the chunk of sluffy shale cliff off... Anyway, up and down that slope a bunch of times trying to get the anchor to hold. And also in getting it to hold, from either the front or back end, but finding out that pulling from one end or the other was pivoting the other end of the truck off into "goodbye was nice to know you, hope you like living at the bottom of a river" land for the truck.
I can't hear rattlesnakes. At all.
At one point as I'm trying to get up that hill and not down it with a bunch of recovery gear, a good sized for this country rattlesnake rolled by right in front of me. And I do mean rolled by. Steep up there. He was in kind of an incomplete hoop and literally rolled like a hoop right past me.
Few rigging attempts later, I'm doing the same thing but Steve was up the hill with me. We were a good 20 yards apart. I'm trying to traverse with all the recovery gear. Steve yells Stop! Stop! Stop! This is not even close to the first time he's told me to Stop! like that. Means he can hear a rattlesnake by me.
And so on.
Didn't get it done that first day. Setup cots in the middle of that cobby shelf road and went to sleep. With the sound of rocks falling off the slope and visions of rattlesnakes filling our heads. Shortly before I drifted off the sleep I heard a decent size rock coming down the slope and heard the loud PING as it nailed my Yetti rambler sitting on the ground ten feet away.
Middle of the night, it's raining. Steve bless his heart got up and put up the tent by himself right there in the middle of that cobby shelf road. Didn't wake me up until it was done and all I had to do was drag my bedding in out of the rain.
Next day we finally got it rigged right. Pulling from both ends at the same time. Lot of work. But it worked.
That night, after getting out of there and having an amazing day of exploring and shooting the 'ell out of rock chucks; camp, with grilled ribeyes and quite a few long sips of the whiskey for me, was especially enjoyable.
- DAA
That was close; bet Steve's pucker string was exercised more than once during that process.
Looks like setup I had on my truck, 9.5 Warn? Pulled one end of my truck sideways up to the belly in mud, how hard is it to slide both ends sideways on shale?
Yes, pucker factor was big. At one point, I was berating him to just have some balls and throttle out. He invited me to try. I barely nudged the throttle and felt my colon heading towards my throat as the truck obeyed gravity...
Hard to drag it sideways like that. Took a few tries to get the rigging to hold. Winch was smoking and smelling funny.
- DAA
Sgt_Mike
Well-known member
DAA looks like a effective use of a improvised 1-1-1 picket steadfast aka holdfast (it looks like a 1-1-1 setup on the photos, or is that just 1 angle iron? ). Good thinking on self recovery. . Great job.
I always get amazed at how many folks don't realize that a DRW (dually) can work as a winch (2wd or 4wd makes no difference). Or the usage of the differing picket holdfast designs, deadman, or using a tarp buried in sand as a deadman aka sand parachute to self recover. Basically a lost art because of ease and availability of assistance. That is until there is no assistance to be had. Again great job especially with that terrain.
(old military manuals such as FM20-22, and FM5-34 the latter goes briefly into it while FM20-22 goes into detail contains such knowledge).
I always get amazed at how many folks don't realize that a DRW (dually) can work as a winch (2wd or 4wd makes no difference). Or the usage of the differing picket holdfast designs, deadman, or using a tarp buried in sand as a deadman aka sand parachute to self recover. Basically a lost art because of ease and availability of assistance. That is until there is no assistance to be had. Again great job especially with that terrain.
(old military manuals such as FM20-22, and FM5-34 the latter goes briefly into it while FM20-22 goes into detail contains such knowledge).
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cherokeetracker01
Member
Glad you got this done, and done properly. From the looks, I believe that I would have wanted to exit the truck from the passenger side.
On another note, knowledge, is so valuable in a situation like this.
On another note, knowledge, is so valuable in a situation like this.
22magnum22
Well-known member
Just going by the great pictures Dave shares with us, I can surmise that this was not his first rodeo! Remember, the first inhabitants of the many old dwellings got there on foot or maybe horseback. Sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to see what lies beyond the horizon!
I have to travel with you guys vicariously as my old bones have begun to put up resistance.
I have to travel with you guys vicariously as my old bones have begun to put up resistance.