Recovery boards on wet clay are a scam in the PNW

Watched a guy sink a Tacoma in ORV Park near Tillamook last month. He had those expensive Maxtrax boards and they just spun on the wet clay like ice. I told him to air down to 15 psi and use a shovel, he got out in 20 minutes. Why do people keep buying gear that only works on sand or snow? Has anyone else found that clay mud just laughs at traction boards?

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the_mila24d ago

Laughs at traction boards" is a strong take, but I think you're missing the real problem here. Those Maxtrax boards are built for sand and snow, not for PNW clay, and blaming the gear when the driver didn't match the tool to the ground is like blaming a kayak for not doing well on a dirt road. The guy sinking his Tacoma probably also had the wrong tire pressure from the start, and you even said airing down fixed it in 20 minutes. So the boards weren't the scam, the lack of prep was. I've used recovery boards on wet clay a bunch of times up here, and they work if you dig them in at an angle and use them in pairs, not just slap them flat under spinning tires. Clay is slick, but it's not magic, it just needs a different technique than the YouTube videos show for beach recoveries.