PEAX Equipment

Snowy Vehicle Recovery

Guy

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Joined
Dec 5, 2018
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442
Got the word last night that a family had abandoned their Nissan Armada SUV on a snow covered dirt road over on Badger Mountain, about 25 miles from my place. They'd been out looking at property in it, and had descended to a place where the road was blocked. They'd planned a reasonable route, downhill all the way, but a large fallen tree across the road blocked them. When they tried to drive the SUV back up to where they'd started... It wasn't up to the task.

Ultimately the young couple walked out with their two kids. They noticed some large "dog" tracks along the way... The area is known to have wolf, coyote, mountain lion and bears... Not sure what they saw tracks of, but entirely possible it was some large, furry predator.

The parents hiked back in on Monday, carrying tire chains. They were only able to get one chain on the front, and did make some progress towards getting out, but not enough. Last night our local 4wd community learned of their predicament. This morning four people headed out in three Jeeps to get that Nissan out of there! The couple met us at the end of the pavement and hopped in our Jeeps. I aired down to 10 psi for traction.

We drove down, down, and down some more. I was getting worried about getting my own Jeep out! I would not have gone down there, in winter, except if necessary. I guess this was necessary. We reached the Nissan Armada, and I was relieved to see that it had a pair of front tow hooks from the factory! Yes! I went to work with shovel, and shoved some Max Trax boards in front of the rear tires.
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My son spooled out some synthetic*winch line from his 1998 Cherokee. Warn 8000 winch.
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We got the second chain on the other front tire!*The young lady*took over driving, she did a beautiful job of "feather-footing" the accelerator. Very gentle. Nice, with minimum wheelspin.

Josh winched. She drove. We worked with shovel and the Max Trax boards. Got the Nissan up that first big hill! Vehicles re-positioned. My Wrangler took over winch chores. Deliberately drove my Jeep into the ditch adjacent to the road, and got it well stuck, in order to be able to winch up the considerably larger and heavier Nissan. I have an inexpensive but powerful Engo 10k winch. It did a wonderful job of pulling that big Nissan up! She drove, I winched, and up it came! :)
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Time to time we added a recovery strap, or two, to lengthen our reach with the winch.
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I didn't get a photo of this, was too busy driving, but also towed the Nissan for about a half-mile up a couple of less-steep hills. My Jeep*was in low range, first gear with the rear diff locked.

After four hours of work, using so many tools, we got the Nissan back to pavement! Today we used:
shovel
tire chains
recovery straps
winches (2)
Max Trax boards

And even my 5-gallon fuel can! The Nissan's V8 had burned through a lot of fuel, leaving the vehicle nearly empty. My Jerry can full of gas was very welcome, allowing the powerful V8 to assist with the hill climbing. It would have been a LOT tougher if we'd had to winch and pull the Armada up those hills without it working too.

I think what impressed me the most was the cool, calm teamwork demonstrated today. The two folks with the Nissan admitted that they knew little about four-wheeling, and had made a mistake even venturing onto that road, in these conditions. However, they were quick learners, listened well, and helped us, help them. The rest of us applied decades of four-wheeling knowledge to get them out, without damaging their vehicle, or ours. I reminded everyone that we were going to talk-through every move, do it right, not injure anyone or break anything expensive.

It all worked. Four hours of pretty intense, but not rushed, work. Vehicle is out. Family is all home and well. New friends were made and old friends had another good day of four-wheeling together. I rather enjoy these "rescue" missions. Always a challenge.

Lots of lessons learned by the new folks with their Nissan. :) I'm glad it all worked out for them. And for us.

Regards, Guy
 
Cool story. Good on you guys for helping.
 
Big SUV and street tires are a recipe for disaster. I know people here in Montana with driveways worse than that. mtmuley
 
Nice job! If they'd have had a chainsaw would they have been able to cut that tree and keep going?

Possibly. A lot of us here carry saws, I just keep a bow saw in my Jeep, but some of the guys bring their chainsaws every time. It's helped a lot.

The road these folks were on does a big loop, and they were traveling it in the downhill direction, which was good. But... That tree had apparently fallen at least a few weeks back, and nobody else had gone beyond it either, so... They would have been bucking unbroken snow at that point. I think it would have actually been shorter for them to go out that way, but maybe not a good choice? At any rate it certainly did block their progress.

Ya, a good saw is a great thing to have while out in the hills! Between a saw, axe and winch, we've cleared a lot of backroads over the years.

Guy
 
Kudos to you and your group for helping those folks get their vehicle out. I always wonder how many people believe their vehicle can actually do the things they see being done in the tv commercials. Armada, well at least it sounds tough.
Zipping up and down icy and snowy roads on the way to grandmas house at breakneck speeds. Yeah right.
 
Have you used those things?

They look pretty interesting.

Thanks, Guy

Fortunately, I have not been in a position to use them, but they do work well. I have a set, with the extender bars, that rides around in the back of my truck all of the time-along with a portable winch and chains.

A couple years ago, I was hunting quail on the San Carlos Res in Arizona and we got buried in mud. Luckily, we had phone service and a great game warden winched us out. A set of Truck Claws would have put us back on the road.
 

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