We had a very similar situation on our last outing at Winter Romp.My friend's highly modified and loaded to the gills D2 got stuck very deep in mud . Leaving his truck till next day as it was -10 F outside and everything was freezing very quickly,was not an option.A tank would probably not get him unstuck next day from that spot. As people gathered to think the situation over , I pulled my brand new Big Bubba Rope with two 7/8 shackles and hooked him up to my LR3.Befoe anybody said what? I gained some momentum and there he was out with no drama.He said that he could not feel a thing , no hard bang, shock or sharp jerking, it was as seamless as velvet.all we ever used before was recovery straps, until I used a solid product, that was built for one specific purpose, to use a kinetic force of one truck on another stuck vehicle. One has to feel it to believe the difference. Few hours earlier, in similar situation that also involved a de beaded tire,we used my trusty Bushranger air jack to lift his D2 up so we could comfortably work on dislodged tire .This operation was performed on deep snow , so hi lift jack would be useless in this particular situation.I also own many other recovery gadgets along with a Scott Wyett come along with Amsteel Blue syntethic line,that I used at the beginning of my off road ventures in local woods later to learn a rule nr.1 of off roading, that you never go alone if you don't have to.
My lesson from it is, that proper equipment helps, but Good equipment helps immensely and winch is not always necessary or helpful, especially when there is no way for a truck to turn around and winch you out, if you don't have one or there is nobody behind to help you.
Be careful though, when pulling LR3 out of anything.It is a heavy beast,heavier, that most of my friends expected at one time.We were winching ourselves up a steep curvy,very icy and snowy hill,coming out of a deep stream with a high ledge and as everybody was fine, it took two Defenders wedged onto themselves and strapped to trees behind them to pull my up this hill. Without two straps on their rear recovery points connected to trees,i was pulling them both towards me.in fact one 3/8 synthetic line did not make it alive,so to speak, breaking.
