Sorry for the thread title but it was an exclamation by a young mother after I pulled their family Expedition out of a snowbank. I have zero pictures so this story lacks any proof but I thought it would be fun to share anyway.

My wife and I took a drive Sunday afternoon up over Trapper's Loop and down into the Eden Valley to check out Pineview reservoir's water level. We've been getting some crazy amounts of snow this winter and the rivers and streams and reservoirs are filling fast. The 5 year drought is officially over.

We drove over the small dam at the head of Ogden canyon and made our way to the large boat ramp on the lake's west side. The road heading into the ramp and parking area has not been maintained during the winter so the snow was deep-ish. It was about six inches of slush on top of another 8-10 inches of crunchy ice. We saw an older model Expedition about 100 feet down the entrance road that had slid off into the ditch. There was a lady and young daughter inside. We asked if we could help but she said her husband was off looking for something to dig out and was on his way back. We knew we were going to come back in a few minutes so we proceeded on to the parking area passing the husband who was now walking back up the hill with a found garden rake and a piece of plywood. I just nodded at him as we passed. I didn't dare drive down the ramp as there were only snowmobile tracks and nothing else but we did walk out onto the ice for a little bit. It took some coaxing for my wife as she has never been on lake ice before. Checked that one off the list!

We drove back up to where the young family was stuck and I again offered to help. This time I got a yes, please so I pulled out the 30 foot 30,000 pound recovery strap ready to give him a pull. I also got out my fancy 2 inch D-ring hitch but I forgot to put the hitch spacers back under the seat last time I took them out. Bummer! My purpose-made recovery hitch was going to do no good! So I tried the simpler hitch-pin-through-the-strap-loop-inside-the-receiver method hoping I wouldn't shear off the pin when I gave it a yank. He had a two inch receiver so at least I was able to use the D-ring on his truck.

I knew this was going to be an iffy recovery because his Expedition would have to come up and out of the ditch onto the road. And this when I was going uphill in slush on ice. I told him to straighten the wheels and put the trans in reverse and just help a little as I got him going. I made sure the wife and daughter were ready and got in my truck. Using 4Lo and not locking the rear axles I drove away at probably 10 mpg until wham! The strap tightened and yanked his truck right up and out of the ditch. I just kept on the power for the next hundred feet until we were on plowed road.

As I got out of the truck, the wife jumped out of the Expedition laughing hysterically and said, "HOLY CRAP *****!" She and her husband were very grateful. It looked like they had been stuck for at least an hour and they were glad to get out of there.

My takeaways included how impressed I was with the 2017 monster's tugability. I know I had brand new tires and everything but wow, it just dug in and pulled about 7,500 lbs through the snow so effortlessly. I was also impressed by how well the hitch pin through the recovery strap loop method worked. I looked over the loop and saw no wear or damage even though there was a tremendous force applied to it. Pin was good, strap was good, all good.

I just thought I'd share. Fun little experience with the 2017 F350 tow monster.

 

Great story! We are here in St George marveling at the weather you guys are getting up in SLC.....

 

Epic and to the rescue!!😎

 

I enjoyed reading your post! Like BigStu59 said, Epic and Ford to the rescue! I was actually second guessing getting a diesel but you just confirmed why I did. These truly are amazing trucks. On another subject and sorry for asking the same about the Coalescer Filter as you did. I actually found your original post some months past. But did you ever get a Ford Part number for the filter? I still cannot locate any reference to this filter other than what is written in the Owner's Manual.

 

No, I haven't seen them yet. Drop by and ask your dealer's parts department this question and they will just give you that blank stare followed predictably by a shrug of the shoulders. Have any trucks made it to 75,000 miles yet? It won't be long. We'll let them figure it out.

 

My winter count so far is 5 vehicles pulled out. My favorite was a full sized (if you can call it that) Tundra. The guy had spun out going 70 down the high way and whipped a 180 and went rear end into a snow bank so deep he had to climb out of his drivers window. He was trying to dig things out, but was totally buried. I hooked up with my 30,000 strap directly to my hitch and it was almost effortless pulling him out. He put the brakes on after I got him onto dry pavement. I almost just towed him 60 miles back to the city against his will!

 

good job EPIC!

 

Great testimonial..! I love a story with a happy ending!!

 

Awesome story Epic. I might need to upgrade my strap, if this truck is so strong, my 20k strap might be too week. I do have two lengths of 40k chain, but that is not ideal for sure if something does break.

 

I bought the Bubba Rope "shackle" below for using with the front tow hooks so you don't chip or scratch paint when pulling people in reverse. This thing is awesome.


This is the strap I went with and it's perfect after 5 pulls.

 

You have the record. I always enjoy helping folks out like that. One of the big un-quantifiable values I get out of having such an awesome machine.

I have a 20K lbs strap under the seat also. The loop is torn off one end and it's been used a lot. I use it when I kind of don't care about cutting or scraping it but I'd never pull hard with it.

Have you seen the videos where the full-on Bubba rope is used? I've always wanted one but they are expensive. This one is rated to 28,600 lbs but it's $205.




This one is rated at an eye popping 131,500 lbs but is $660 on Amazon.




They work like this:

 

I've pulled out 2 of my SD's out of various ditches with my sons Ranger.
The right strap can make all the difference in the world to a recovery.

 

im also impressed in the 4x4 low pulling power in the new 17s, i came up to a guy stuck in his old 1 tone 2wd, he had his friend trying to to pull him out but was just sitting there spinning all 4 tires and going side to side, so i took a go at it, and almost pulled him out by just letting go of the brakes, barley hit the gas, he had a holy crap ***** look on his face too! lol

 

Tugability!!!! Nice. You and AK get to have all the fun this winter. Closest I get to pulling someone out is if the lake drops really low....or the crowds get large at the coast and really loosen the sand up on the plowed beach road. Great story.

 

I was looking at straps and ropes based on this thread last night. It's amazing how much more a similarly rated rope costs compared to a recovery strap. The best (and only that I know of) made American made straps and tie downs are from Mac's Custom Tie Downs. Here's their 4" strap rated to 37k. http://www.macscustomtiedowns.com/pr...ecovery-Straps It's twice the cost of this similarly rated Chinese strap on Amazon that I was considering (same one Nick has) but...