When a friend in need realy needs a friend with a Jeep 4x4
Many of our life’s adventures are a bit hair rising, few of us have met up with adventures almost devastating results such as this one I am about to tell.
Remember now, there is no such thing as safe ice, we had several days of 40-50 degree weather which made our ice soft and spongy, 6 inches of ice wont hold any thing.
A buddy riding with his girlfriend and myself were out searching for a place to stash a new cashe when his Suzuki quad went through ice in 40 feet of water of a lake in southeast Michigan.
It took 6 men, a few hundred feet of rope, a spud, three come-a-longs and one Articat 4x4 with a one-ton wench to pull it out. Sure could have used the real Jeep 4x4.
There were two tricky parts, the obvious one was the ice kept breaking as we brought the Suzuki up, the second is that it was floating upside down...
When we winched the ORV to the surface it was upside down,, We would have to lower it back down and roll it while it was submerged in order to get a couple tires on the ice.
To accomplish this you need to get two tires under the ice so when you are pulling it up the bottom of the machine meets the ice for an easy roll-up.
We strapped the 4x4 to a tree to keep it from sliding in to the lake as well. We lowered the Suzuki rolled it to a sideways position and brought two tiers upon the ice where we roped it off.
Using the wench we pulled the Suzuki up as far as it would come with out causing damage, we then ran two more straps to the top of the Suzuki to roll the machine to an upright position, with this accomplished we toed the Suzuki inwards to solid ice with the wench of the Articat 4x4