I always carry a short length of steel fence post (12"-14" long) with a steel loop in the middle to tie too, to put down in a drilled ice hole. I keep one in my ATV and snowmobile to anchor the machine when pulling someone else out of a bind, or something to pull too if I get stuck in the slush/snow. Late last spring a friend broke through the ice with the front end of his ATV when going over an ice ridge, I anchored the rear of my machine and winched him out, without the anchor my machine would have been the one being winched, not his.