Knock on wood, but so far, I've been lucky.

The closest we came was on top of the Horse Heaven Hills in the dead of a bad winter. I'd just bought the Jeep, and it still had factory Fortuna baldies with 50% tread. We took off across grill deep stuff, and I started to get REAL nervous after maybe 100 yards. I stopped, we got out and looked back. The skid plates were leaving a ''sled trail'' of mashed down, packed snow. My buddies acted as spotters as I backed up. I should rephrase that - I wallowed it backwards and out, with a dozen ''almosts'' for the next 20 minutes as it went off track.

We were MILES in, with the nearest pavement (read: civilization) probably 12 miles away. The snow packed dirt road we headed up was a maintenance road for wind generators, and failrly well traveled. We just headed out into the deep stuff where it ended at a whirlygig on top.

Now, as for other rigs I've had? The worst was a Dodge truck that skidded sideways off a cat-cut road in another winter. And, again, miles from anything. The only thing that saved it from sliding down to its death into a 200 foot deep ravine, was a large sagebrush that caught the rear tire. We spent some time digging it out, and carefully backing up onto the road. We had chains on, which helped.

In view of past stucks in my other 4x4's, I pack a ridiculous amount of recovery gear in the XK. I even have a full size shovel on the roof rack. An X-Jack with 30'' lift for getting out of sand. Tire chains for snow or mud. Someday we'll bury the XK, and the camera will come out.