Haha, I'm sure right now, in some other forum, a similar story is being told about myself.

Yesterday, 3/01, My buddies and I headed up to Mary's Peak to play in the snow. Mary's peak is the tallest mountain in the coast range at about 4,000 feet, it is not heavily used, and the roads are not plowed. Anyway when we were up there we found a Toyota truck buried down to it's axles in snow. I tried to help pull him out, but to no avail I became stuck myself. Next thing I know another Toyota shows up and promptly becomes stuck right next to me.

At this point it was getting dark and I had spent the last hour leapfrogging from tree to tree slowly winching my way back to solid ground. About this time two snow mobilers show up. They seemed really nice offering us water, hats, rides down etc. I did a quick inventory of my Jeep and determined that I had enough food, water, shelter, and clothing to last myself for about 3 days. I respectfully declined their hospitality and continued my attempts at self recovery.

Shortly after the snow mobilers left, I was almost out but had run out of trees to winch to. After a few minutes of head scratching I decided to try burying my spare tire deep beneath the snow for use as a land anchor. I almost had everything set up, and was pretty confident it would have worked, when a snow cat showed up.

The drivers of the snow cat were acting a little too condescending for my taste. They said something along the lines of "How about this: we pull out your Jeep and then you can pull out the rest of the vehicles and you're on your own. Sound fair?" For some reason this really upset me, at the time I didn't see how it would be fair, considering I didn't think I even needed their help at all. I wanted to tell them to go away and continue digging my hole, but everyone else really wanted to go home ASAP, so I gave in and used the snow cat as a winch anchor.

This is what the snow was like whenever you left the narrow ruts of our trail:


We found a Toyota stuck in the snow so we tried to pull them out. Unfortunately this only resulted in getting my Jeep stuck, really stuck.


Right as I'm winching my way out (leapfrogging from tree to tree) the snow cat shows up:


Oh man it was a fun day! How many vehicles can say they've been rescued by a snow cat or any other tracked vehicle for that matter!

Was the snow cat privately owned or was it part of some public rescue service?

Dang that snow was deep! Everytime someone posts a picture of snow or talks about below-freezing temperatures I thank God I'm now in Texas.

-Blast

The snow cat was privately owned by either an electric company or logging operation. It just happened to be in the area to check on something, and we just happened to be stuck on the trail they were using. Really it was pure luck that they found us.

As I mentioned earlier, I could have self recovered, it just would have taken me an additional hour or two. Probably worked out for the best though, it was already 10pm by the time we got off the mountain.

The dreaded white stuff strikes again.

Pretty good idea, using the spare as a deadman...

I've been on both sides of that "argument." I've been stuck, even with a winch equipped vehicle, shovels, food, water, etc.; and I've gotten people out of jams. I guess my only issue is with the poor schmuck that has NOTHING. But then again, hopefully, that would spawn that person to actually THINK before they venture out again. BTW, having beer to barter didn't hurt.

This is #1 reason you don't 4-Wheel alone. Winch or no winch there are times (as you've now learned) that a winch is useless or it just busts.

In the snow I suggest wheeling with a minimum of three people because like you expierenced as well two ppl can get stuck relatively easily especially during a rescue operation.

Almost EVERYTIME we go to the snow in our jeeps/buggys we end up pulling 5+ ppl out... we don't complain or [censored] it's part of going out and having fun and helping people.

DEEP SNOW requires a different driving style too as well as airing down a LOT more than most people are familiar with.


May I suggest a winch extension as well as a tow strap if you don't already have one... you could use the winch extension for what it's made for and also the 30ft tow strap as an extra long tree saver to pull from those far away trees or vehicles.


We took the quads to the snow right after a big storm 2-3ft all powder lots of fun It's a weird feeling plowing through powder as tall as the front of the quad!!

I agree, getting stuck, getting un-stuck, and helping others out is more than half the fun The only reason I was upset was because of the Snow Cat operators attitude. In contrast I was more than happy / excited to help recover the stranded Toyota.



Off the top of my head, here's the list of recovery gear I had in my Jeep:
1x 100' winch cable
1x 20' tow strap
1x 30' tow strap
1x 8' tree saver
1x 20' tow chain
1x Come Along
1x Folding Shovel
1x Bow Saw
1x Hatchet
3-5 days worth of food water, shelter and clothing.

As I mentioned earlier I could have gotten myself and the Toyota out. It would have just taken me an extra hour or two.

We had 2 other vehicles in our group that could have gotten my co-pilot and I off the mountain. Unfortunately they were too small, and just barely couldn't get close enough to aid in our recovery efforts The only reason I continued on was to help pull out the stranded Toyota we found.

P.S. Looks like it was a great day to go play in the snow with your quad

As someone who does NOT off-road, I alway wondered about winching -(I've helped folks do it - but) - I wonder if carrying a nice sized danforth anchor (or other fluke anchor) would be a good idea - those things really do dig in

Actually, there is a gizmo on the market, the Pull-pal , which is similar to your anchor, and designed specifically for anchoring a winch line. I have never used one, but have read that they work very well...

Never having used a winch, can you explain the use of the spare tire? I'm thinking if it's buried enough to be used as an anchor spot, it would be a real problem digging it back out. Am I missing something?

Being as how the snow cat showed up before I had a chance to use my spare as an anchor, I can only tell you how it was supposed to work

The idea is to minimize the vertical force on the tire so you are only pulling it laterally through the snow. Snow is actually quite strong this way. Consider the idea of stopping yourself from sliding down the side of a mountain with an ice ax.

To do this I buried the tire as far away from the Jeep as possible, in my case about 100' away due to the length of my winch line. Doing this minimizes the angle of pull, resulting in very little vertical force being exerted on the tire. In addition I planned to dig a small trench for my winch line to get an even more direct pull. After I dug the hole I compacted the snow along the outside of the hole to help distribute the load more evenly on the surrounding snow. Now I had the 100' of snow between my Jeep and the tire, holding the tire in place while I winched out. I then would have thrown a large pile of compacted snow on top of the tire to help stabilize it.

Ideally a log would have worked much better than a tire because of the log's greater mass and larger surface area. However, I did not want to cut down a perfectly good tree, so I decided to try my tire first. After all, I'm the one who got stuck, no reason to punish a tree for it

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's a "come-along"?

It's like a strap winch you crank by hand. You often see them used on trucks to secure cargo.

Here is a big version: