Red Feather Lakes froze down Dodge Durango

A little over a week ago a Durango got stuck on an un-maintained forest road just north of Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. After spending the night in the car hoping someone would come by, a 911 call was placed and they were evac'd by Larimer County Search and Rescue.
After playing the weather forecast, Valentines Day was the best day of the week for not only volunteer response, but also daytime temperatures to be working in the snow. At the peak of the day it was nearly 45 degrees.
The initial pull showed us just how frozen down the vehicle was to the snow and ice after having ran for over 12 hours when it got stuck. We broke the suction with a pair of high lift jacks, and rigged a 2:1 reduction back to the tree to take the load off the Power Wagon doing the winching. The first pull attempt totally stopped the winch and the battery warning came on.
You will see the safe-xtract X-lock in the video... that device is a super handy tool to have in the recovery bag, and multiple members own at least one! These are used to shorten winch line, bridal lines to vehicles, etc. But in our case we used it to keep the power wagon rope on the last wrap for maximum pulling power.
We didn't need a 2:1 after breaking the suction, nor did we need to run all the winch line out, but we rigged for worse case scenario (after the 1st failed attempt) vs multiple re-riggings.
A little bit of snow bashing involved getting to and from this one with the wind howling up there, but it was a fun and relatively easy operation.
The safe extract android app calculated this pull at in-excess of 15,500 lbs prior to breaking the ice hold on the vehicle, and this Durango weighs in at approximately 5,100 pounds. So just being frozen down over tripled the weight of the vehicle on the winch line.

[@RyanJosephLong]

First generation durango. That's what I have! That's a lot of snow! Nice job guys!

[@oldrango883]

Looks like a bad case of the wrong tires

[@gilbertarnold8666]

Great video thank you!

[@mobius-1503]

Ah cmon Durango

[@SkyBlueOffRoad]

Your soft shackle is wrong guys.. at 4:00.....the loop/knot needs to be to the side not right on the pull zone.

[@JustinKingOffroad]

that is a common misconception.

[@Colorado4x4RescueandRecovery]

Sky Blue, this was thoroughly tested by factor 55 recently and was determined insignificant in how you set it up. Our I4WDTA trainer also agrees with our rigging. read more at factor55.com/uncategorized/does-it-matter-how-you-use-a-soft-shackle/

[@jerrycrosley8403]

I noticed the use of the x block. Where do you get one?

[@Colorado4x4RescueandRecovery]

you can pick up a x-lock at ASR, www.asroffroad.com/sx-20000h-x-lock-20-000-lb-wll/