"TOUGH OFF-ROADING AND WINCHING" Ed Cobley from Canada - Submitted on 04.07.08 Out with my dad in the Welsh mountains, mid-winter, with 7 vehicles all failing a very steep 200 foot climb up a very wet and boggy firebreak in the forest. Ground anchors pulled, and a lot of the trees were not mature enough to winch from. At the time we had a well prepared Defender 90 with a WARN M8274 on it, with one last blast and lockers engaged we managed to get far enough up the firebreak so we could use a sturdy tree on the exit to winch to, a few minutes later were out! only 6 more vehicles to go, but pulling 6 heavily laden Defenders thru a peat bog is hard work!! We secured the 90 to the tree we winched to and proceeded to pull the other vehicles up one by one, with a little drive assist at times we pulled the first two up with no problem, just holding the reves higher and letting the alternator charge our twin batteries, and then gave the winch a short rest, someone forgot to tell my dad to give me a rest!! I was 15 at the time and up and down that riding with winch straps, shackles and pulley blocks!! all of that and while sinking up to my knees in parts of the bog which was made worse by each passing vehicle. While we were resting our friend said he would help and started to use his x-brand well to be fare it did get the next vehicle 2/3rds of the way up before stalling, we connected the M8274 again and the Defender 110 the x-brand struggled with was next to us quite quickly in comparison! With darkness now with us we still had 2 more vehicles to pull, each pull was done single line except for 2 fully laden Defender 110's which with the drag and resistance plus their weight we reckoned they weighed around 5-6 ton!! That was my worst experience at tough off-roading and winching, I have never looked back and I learn so much that long night, but my memory will always be of seeing vehicle after vehicle pulled up that firebreak in atrocious conditions by the WARN M8274, a truly dependable an amazing piece of equipment.