ExtremeTerrain.com Blog

Carrying well-chosen trail recovery gear among your Wrangler’s equipment ensures you successfully complete your off-road adventure. Some off-road spots can trap a Jeep – including deep mud, obstacles, steep slopes and stream beds. Rather than walking for hours before reaching a road and then spending considerable amounts of money and additional time retrieving your Wrangler, having winches, shovels and other recovery tools on board enables extracting yourself from difficulties. This satisfying, practical self-reliance quickly frees your JK for more thrilling cross-country action.

A Sturdy Winch for Effective Recovery

The Barricade Off-Road 9,500lb synthetic line winch with wireless control provides a tough, hardy, affordable version of the winch, a trail recovery tool no off-road driver can dispense with. Winches extract Wranglers from the majority of difficulties encountered, such as mud holes. The Barricade Off-Road’s 9,500lb working capacity drags Jeeps out of such locations, or assists with difficult wheeling like climbing wet mountain trails.

The winch’s strength suffices to pull a Jeep with locked wheels easily across level ground. The remote control enables operating the winch from inside the Jeep, or off to the side if safety conditions require. Installment and wiring of this winch is straightforward, needing approximately 1-2 hours for one person, somewhat faster with two. A good winch like the Barricade Off-Road’s is the foundation for every set of trail recovery gear, enabling extraction from many difficult situations when an anchor point is available.

Snatch Block and Straps for Advanced Recovery

While a winch handles the majority of off-road problems, the Barricade Off-Road Recovery Kit extends its capabilities, allowing a Wrangler’s escape from even more predicaments. The 17,500lb snatch block enables several additional winch uses, including linking back to your Jeep (doubling pulling power), or as a midpoint enabling pulling in a different direction than straight ahead.

The snatch block’s smooth curves ensure it will not fray or damage the winch’s synthetic line. The drag chain allows even more extraction setups, such as an A-shaped attachment to both front recovery points, equalizing a winch recovery to the Jeep’s center. The extra-rugged D-shackles provide sturdy attachment for the included snatch straps if rescuing the JK from its plight demands towing by another Jeep.

Gloves and a storage bag provide hand protection and storage neatness. A good recovery kit like the Barricade Off-Road kit gives you the power to extract your Wrangler from almost anywhere it gets stuck.

Interchangeable Tools for Extra-Difficult Situations

Rounding out a JK’s trail recovery gear with the Rugged Ridge All Terrain Recovery Tool Kit provides the wherewithal to deal with “corner cases,” situations where a winch represents overkill or won’t help. The single steel handle with four interchangeable heads – shovel, pick, ax, and 5-lb sledgehammer – saves space and weight.

The shovel provides the most use, removing excess snow for better traction, shoveling out mud from around a mired vehicle, packing earth under “hanging” rear wheels, or many other tasks making retrieval easier (or possible at all). The pick loosens hard-packed earth, frozen dirt or rocky soil before shoveling.

The sledge drives in a recovery anchor if other recovery points are unavailable or breaks up ice. The ax enables cutting poles to serve as “corduroy” traction under the wheels, breaking up stumps or logs the Wrangler is hung up on, and similar tasks. Together with a winch and snatch block/straps, this kit gives you the final elements you need to free basically any trapped Jeep.