VE6AB Technical
The Recovery
So recently while backroading in Banff Park, I come around a corner on a snow covered stretch of road, and spot a Jeep 4 dr Wrangler in the ditch. I pull up beside the wrangler which is sitting on a steep angle with the back-end buried in snow and the front-end pointed upwards towards the road, and open my driver's side window. There is a young woman sitting in the driver's seat, and she opens the door and stands on the running board looking over the open door at me.
I say......'looks like you need a pull," she says.....I took the corner a little fast, and my jeep did a 360 before ending up in the ditch!" She is pleased to hear that I have a recovery strap, and accepts my offer to attempt to pull her wrangler out of the ditch where it sits in 2' of snow.
I go down the road a ways, and turn my Avalanche around, before positioning my vehicle face first looking at the wrangler.
Now you are asking yourself why I didn't just pull her out with the back side of my truck, and that is because there is nothing solid on the rear of my truck that would allow for this without potentially causing damage to my bumper or what passes for a hitch on my Avalanche (My Avalanche has a very basic hitch receiver attached to the bumper only, rated for pulling light utility trailers).
Now on the front of my Avalanche as seen in the photo, there are heavy-duty tow-loops mounted to the frame on either side that protrude through the front of what passes for a bumper.
Now this is where you may want to pay attention if you have never attempted to pull a vehicle before, stuck in a snowbank or otherwise.
First of all if you are thinking of purchasing a recovery strap similar to the one that you see here, you need to make the decision as to how you would fasten it to your vehicle if needing a pull, or if you are attempting to pull another vehicle as I did on this day, how you will fasten it to that vehicle.
In this case I own a 3" wide by 30' long recovery strap with formed loops at either end, the strap rated for 27,000 lbs pull before it self destructs due to overstressing it. When I originally made the purchase several years back, I took into consideration that my Avalanche with its closed tow-loops needed an additional accessory in the form of a forged screw pin shackle rated accordingly to allow the recovery-strap to be connected up to my Av.
So in preparation to pull out the wrangler, I first looked for a solid point to connect the recovery strap to on the wrangler, and because it had tow hooks that were bolted directly to the frame, I felt confident that I could attach my recovery strap to the two hooks, and not cause any damage to the wrangler while attempting to pull it out of the snowbank it was stuck fast in.
So what I did is form a loop in the recovery strap as seen in the photo, then I opened up the loop until the loop was large enough to lasso both tow-hooks on the wrangler at the same time.
I then attached the other end of the recovery strap to one of the tow-loops on my Avalanche with the use of the forged screw pin shackle seen in the photo.
With everything hooked up and good to go, I backed up until I had the recovery strap laid out nicely between the wrangler and my Av.
Now a recovery strap will stretch until it builds up tension to help pull out the stuck vehicle, and once I explained to the driver of the wrangler what I needed from her positioned in the driver's seat of the wrangler, and making sure she had everything axle wise (front and rear) locked in, I then explained to her that I would take a running start (in reverse) stretching the recovery strap that is designed for this, and helping to jerk the wrangler from the snowbank.
Now this young woman about the age of my own daughter proved to know what to do when she felt my Av tugging on her jeep, as she laid in to the throttle, and with rooster tails going straight up from the tires on the jeep, and my own vehicle locked up in four wheel drive clawing at the road surface, the wrangler slowly started to move and then picking up momentum shot out of the ditch like nobody's business!
So there you have it, how to safely pull a stuck vehicle out of a snowbank that its stuck in, whether it's your own, or someone else's.
Just so you know, my new found friend decided that being she didn't plan on slowing down while going down the road in her Jeep, she probably should purchase her own recovery strap!
Expand the photo for a closer look......
