If my Colorado trip taught me a lesson, it is to make sure your winch is in working order before heading out on your trip. Apparently the synthetic rope in a new winch needs to be unwound and rewound to be tensioned properly. Maybe it was mentioned in their manual. Who reads those things?
So last Sunday when we did Poughkeepsie Gulch, I needed to be winched at the wall. My tires were a little wet and muddy, that made for some wheel spin, even though I was feathering the throttle in 4L with front and rear axles locked.
With my tail tucked between my legs, I agreed to get winched. None of us knew there were two winch points at that spot, but now that I know, my ego is intact. One of the guys attached my synthetic rope to his Jeep and told me to go to 1st gear and let the Jeep pull itself up.
Thanks to the incredible crawl ratio on Rubicon models, my Jeep slowly pulled itself up and in a minute or so I was at the top. I couldn’t get to my winch controller so I wrapped the synthetic rope around my bull bar off road lights, and we were in our way.
When we got back to the trailhead, I started to pull the synthetic rope out so I could wet it down and wind it properly (with tension, going side to side). I found that I wasn’t able to pull it out all the way. The rope only came out 20’ or so. This never happened to me before, so I thought the synthetic rope was fubar.
When I got back home, I posted to some Jeep forums, and got a pretty consistent response. Wet the rope down, attach the end to a tree using a tree hugger, disengage the clutch so the rope spins freely, and slowly go backwards until the rope is fully unwound. Then detach the tree hugger, letting the rope lay on the ground, wet the rope down to get the dirt out, engage the clutch, and slowly retract it going side to side with some tension.
Koda hasn’t seen his friends for a week, so off we went to Windhaven Meadows Park. There’s a huge parking lot there. I can use my tree hugger to do the thing.
Within an hour the task was done. The rope is ready for our group trip to Hot Springs OHV Park in Arkansas on Labor Day weekend. I hope I get the chance to repay the favor and winch someone (hopefully not me!).
Overlander at large 