Addendun:
1) Recovery gear quickly takes up space and adds weight to your truck, and
2) What you’re likely to need depends on where you are going and who (if anybody) will be with you.
You need to plan/pack for the mission. If several are traveling together you can coordinate to carry more. If you’re alone, think more and plan carefully.
For example, tree-savers and snatch blocks aren’t much help when you’re driving/stuck on the beach/dunes, but a Bubba Rope, shovel, and traction boards are a Godsend. Even if you’re alone, there’s a good chance another rig will be by at some point, so somebody will be able to give you a good yank if you can’t self-extricate with the boards. (Which you almost certainly can, as long as you have a shovel and some time.)
On the other hand, we occasionally travel very muddy, tight, steep, northwest forests in the spring. There are lots of deep, slushy, puddles that are a mix of snow, water, mud, and rocks of every size. The rocks are often up to a foot or more below the surface. Traction boards aren’t helpful in that situation, as they are almost impossible to place between lumpy, mismatched, slippery boulders, especially when you’re trying to position them by feel, and they promptly spin out of position as soon as your first tire spins. The kinetic rope is generally useless in that environment too, as the spaces are too confined and technical, and there’s seldom room to get a good run for a yank. Even when there is room, a hard yank is dangerous because you’re in the middle of boulder-soup, and you might well break something or make your situation worse . The safe solution is a steady pull to help you slowly pick your way out of the hole you’re in. Fortunately, there’s an infinite supply of trees in the forest, so a tree-saver and snatch block is the winner.
The same sort of environmental consideration is useful when deciding what kind of jack to carry. Lots of jeepers carry farm jacks, as I did for nearly 40 years. They’re great tools, but they’re also extremely dangerous, particularly on uneven ground. For me, the best all-around kit is a big bottle jack with extensions and some wood, but in the middle of the dunes/beach or a deep snow field an air/exhaust jack can be a much better tool. (I carry onboard air, so I can air down tires to soften the ride and reduce the likelihood of getting stuck. When I’m out of the greasy stuff I air the tires back up.)
You can’t carry everything for every mission. That’s one of the important lessons young Marine Corps officers learn during training at The Basic School. They’re told not to carry unnecessary trash on their long hump, but many don’t listen, so they start their day overloaded. As the miles add up and fatigue sets in they start dumping gear. (The NCOs used to follow behind them in jeeps, collecting all the gear they discarded on the hump, so they could sell it back to them.
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If I’m with friends we coordinate on recovery gear. More people means more room for contingency gear — like an extra chainsaw, for example. Thinking through this stuff is part of the challenge, and part of the enjoyment.
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