Ramsey ATV Winch

The other day my brother and I went for a ride up Millville canyon in Cache Valley, Utah.  The weather was great and there were very few people on the trail so it was a perfect day for a ride with some awesome views.  The trail leading to Logan peak has some long sections of trail completely covered with large rocks making it hard on your back and your atv.  Other than that the trail is fairly easy and enjoyable.  About half way up the trail we came to a spot where there had been a snow slide and the snow hadn’t melted yet.  The trail we were on was cut into the side of a mountain andit was too steep to go down around the slide andthe path up around the slide was very difficult.  We were worried that if we tried to drive over the slide our atv’s might slip on the snow and slide down into a gully that would be extremely hard and time consuming to get out of (if ever) and would most likely result in a roll over.  I approached it first and decided to take the high route up above the slide, my brother stayed behind to see how it worked out for me.  I got hung up on some branches and had to hop over a few logs, and it just about rolled.  After a long time of bushwhacking /lifting/ plowing etc.. we barely got it through to the other side. We decided that wasn’t the best route for him to get his across.  The atv I was on had a winch on it but his did not.  We decided to try and ride his atv up over the slide and see what happens.  Things went well until about half way across when the atv started sliding downhill towards the point of no return.  After a few minutes of sliding and digging through snow and mud we had it officially stuck, and I mean BAD!  It wasn’t just hung up in the mud and snow, it was also on the verge of rolling and at the edge of a very steep drop off into some trees.  We hooked the winch from my atv onto it so we wouldn’t lose it down the hill but because of the weird angle we were at from the 1st atv to the 2nd (basically a 90 degree angle) there was no way for us to pull it back up onto the trail.   At this point we realized that we really needed a snatch block (pully block) that we could attach to a tree uphill from the atv that was stuck.  By using a snatch block we could run the winch cable from my atv up through the pulley and back down to the stuck atv.  We weren’t prepared with one but we did have a tie down strap andwe were able to make a make-shift one using the hook on the tie down.  We wrapped it around the tree and ran the winch cable through the hook on the tie down.  It actually worked pretty well and we were able to pull the wheeler back up to the trail.  The winch we had was the Ramsey 2500lb ATV winch. We were again impressed with its pulling power and how easy it was to use.  We are now looking to buy another winch so both four wheelers will be equipped.  Or even without a second winch if we just had a snatch block our scary situation could have been easily resolved.   We were surprised at the amount of snow up there still, we actually couldn’t get all the way to Logan peak.  Overall it was a great ride and a fun learning experience.