What's in your ideal recovery kit?  Ideal being the balance between carrying what you'll need/use and leaving heavy/bulky items at home that will rarely if ever be used (or that can be improvised in the field).

The situations to prepare for vary based on the environment of each particular trip, but in general I'm preparing for:

• Self recovery - Winching forward w/ tree/rock w/thin 100'
• Self recovery - Winching in reverse w/ winch on front
• Self reovery - High Centered
• Self recovery - slipping off road towards downhill side or deep ditch
• Stuck w/ no trees/rocks to anchor to
• Tree across road/trail (E.g. blew down while sleeping and is blocking road).

My kit currently has the following well-used equipment:

• Front/rear recovery points on my truck
• Winch w/ 125' of 26k lb winch rope and a shackle on the end.
• Tree strap
• 20' recovery chain with grab hooks
• Snatch block / pulley
• 3 D shackles
• Gloves
• Shovel
• Hi lift jack
• Hi life jack repair kit
• Winch rope repair kit
• Chainsaw - but need more practice w/ it to be comfortable
• Axe
• Gloves
• Hi-lift jack base
• Rud 4x4 grip tire chains for all 4 wheels

I'm considering adding:

• Several pulleys for self recovery backwards
• Recovery/Snatch strap - I should have had one of these ages ago.
• Replacing the chain with a winchline.com "Rock Strap" - much lighter than the heavy chain I carry now, but the chain has broader use.
• Leaving the hi-lift at home and carrying a bottle jack w/ hi-lift jack base
• Jate rings to my sliders
• Pull-pal or equivilent (E.g a 4x4 post, gree tree trunk, or spare half-shafts and a shovel can accomplish the same thing)
• 35-50 ft. rope extension

Yes, my RTE sliders are attached to the sills.

I'd never winch a vehicle sideways with the force vector perpendicular to the tires regardless of where the winch was attached; that's just stupid. I would stabilize a vehicle about ready to flop with a slider. The most common scenario being that the vehicle has slid into a ditch and is being winched forward/backwards but needs a little extra stabilization.

You make an interesting point though.  Maybe I should put a Jate ring/recovery point near the factory tie-down that's on the frame now.  This factory tie-down is located just behind the radius arm bracket on the frame.

The sliders are strong enough to jack the entire side of the truck up. They also sandwich the entire sill of the truck and the force would be going perpendicular to the sill.  They aren't going to suddenly fail because I'm using them to put the force of 2 grown men (if-that) on them to keep the truck from flopping. Most of the weight of the truck will be on the downhill side wheels (the wheels in the ditch), not on the slider being used to stabilize the truck.  We're only talking here about keeping the truck on the good side of the tipping point.

Again, I'd NEVER winch the truck sideways.

If I was trying to keep the truck from sliding down a cliff, I'd need a frame mounted recovery point for sure.  In that case, I'd run two separate lines off the front/rear of the truck though.

Soo... how about we get back to the subject of the optimal recovery kit.  Carrying what you need w/o carrying too much.  What do you carry and why? What would you add/remove from your kit to "tune" it.

I have heard of people bringing a boat anchor rather than the expense of a pull-pal. but it seems like it woul dbe hard to store.

I think the Pull-pal (or anchor) would be great if travelling by yourself in treeless areas, but if you have a rig to anchor too, may be a bit much. Worse case you can bury a spare tire or the high lift.

has anyone used the three stakes driven into the ground method? 

I carry the same stuff you do, Craig, but in a little more quantity.  Extra snatch straps, two snatch blocks, an ARB winch line extension (it's a little wider than rope, doesn't stretch like a snatch strap and will hopefully be better for wrapping around rocks), five 3/4" shackles and a forged aluminum come-along (Jet or other brand) with an extra 100' of 3/8" wire rope (or winch rope in your case).  Unlike the pickup and the Wrangler my Bronco II does not have a winch so in addition to the other stuff I carry a 6,000# (double-line pull) More Power Puller.  I leave the tire chains at home unless I think there will be a need for them.  I seldom travel alone so other than the snatch straps, shackles and an occasional need for a snatch block, most of my retrieval gear goes unused...thank goodness.

Oh, by the way, I think a boat anchor might work.  Unfortunately whether it is a boat anchor or a Pull-Pal most soils in shrub-steppe and other tree-barren areas are hard and rocky, not the best for getting a solid bite.  Also very poor conditions for burying a Hi-Lift Jack or spare tire.

In that regard I wonder if you attached all your available cables, snatch straps, extensions and whatever else you can tie together and wrap the conglomeration behind several sagebrush plants, whether it would be strong enough to winch your vehicle without uprooting the plants.

Thought this was interesting...I would think the time it took you to set this up, either your rig would sink or the mud hole would dry up enough to just drive out.....www.youtube.com/watch

That basic concept is in the Army Recovery manual in our library. No *kit* required. Just wheels with holes in them and a lugnut wrench or other reasonably long piece of metal.  The Army method has you running the rope in the backside of the rim, then hooking it on to a piece of metal to keep it from coming back through the wheel.  Works with the front or back wheels in forward or reverse, so you can winch forward or backward.

I'd like to try it sometime with an old piece of rope just to see how badly everything would get snarled up.... or if I'm lucky, work great.  I like the idea of being able to winch backward in a pinch w/o having to rig up a bunch of pulleys or install a rear facing winch.

Craig