{"id":13031,"date":"2026-03-31T11:27:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/?p=13031"},"modified":"2026-04-25T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T18:23:00","slug":"improving-future-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/?p=13031","title":{"rendered":"Improving future performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, after the Cavalcade of Fail<\/a>, it was time to strategize for next weekend. Right off the bat, if the weather is uncooperative, I’ll stay in town. I understand that the apocalypse will not happen on a sunny day, but for right now I’m not taking any more chances than I have to.<\/p>\n

So, first order of business is to remediate some of the fails from last weekend. A couple of them were rather standout failures.<\/p>\n

T<\/a>he HiLift jack<\/a>.<\/strong> If I had brought the HiLift jack I would have had a way to ‘winch’ myself out if I hadn’t figured out the winch. The reason I didn’t bring it is because it really didn’t fit into the SxS in any meaningful way. The jack is 5′ long and the SxS is exactly 5′ wide. So, I have ordered a set of brackets to mount the jack across one of the bars on the cage of the SxS. In addition to the HiLift jack, I also have the base plate for it and a few other attachments. I keep chains, tow straps, ropes, and snatch blocks in my Unstuck Kit and used in conjunction with the HiLift jack I think I would have gotten better results than I did just trying to shovel things out with an e-tool.<\/p>\n

Speaking of e-tool, I left behind my full size shovel for the same reason I left the HiLift jack behind. And, as with the solution for the HiLift, the solution for the shovel is a rollbar-mounted bracket to hold a D-handle shovel. The Glock e-tool<\/a> did a really great job and it s a product I recommend, but it is not a substitute for a ‘real’ shovel. To that end, I also ordered up a set of brackets to mount a shovel along one of the roll bars on the cage as well.<\/p>\n

Recovery boards<\/a>. If you don’t know what these are, I suggest familiarizing yourself with them. Its basically a surfboard with a rough cats-tongue pattern to it to provide traction. Beats the crap out of throwing branches, floormats, and passengers under the wheels for traction.<\/p>\n

Another failure point was that I broke one of the great commandments of preparedness: I relied on a piece of gear that was unproven<\/em> and I had not practiced or familiarized myself with<\/em>. I knew the SxS came with a winch. Thats all I knew. I spent hours digging out the SxS that could have been avoided if I knew where to plug the wired remote into. But…I had never actually hooked it up and tested its function. Unbelievable rookie mistake. I’ll be swapping out the steel cable-of-questionable-age-and-condition for a brand new synthetic rope and carry a spare of the rope as well.<\/p>\n

Footwear. I was so excited about getting to take the SxS to the Beta Site that I overlooked all sorts of things…including changing into suitable footwear. The solution is to add ‘Change shoes’ into my pre-trip checklist…and believe me, buddy, there’s gonna be a pre-trip checklist.<\/p>\n

I was smart enough to bring my Unstuck Kit, but I need to put in some longer towstraps. And some more clevises (Clevis’? Clevi?) I made a buncha mistakes this last time, but bringing the Unstuck Kit was not one of them. I was able to use the long tow strap that was in the kit to loop to a tree and feed back to the winch hook.<\/p>\n

Now, keep in mind, this is a list of what I did wrong. A list of what I did right is a separate list. So if you feel like chiming in with “you should have had x, you should have has y” keep in mind I may have already had those….this is a list of things I didn’t<\/em> have or do properly.<\/p>\n

I’ve spent the last two days researching various gear and ordering it up. Recovery boards will be here today and more goodies throughout the week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, after the Cavalcade of Fail, it was time to strategize for next weekend. Right off the bat, if the weather is uncooperative, I’ll stay in town. I understand that the apocalypse will not happen on a sunny day, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,19],"class_list":["post-13031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cautionary-tale","tag-gear-2"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13164,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13031\/revisions\/13164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commanderzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}