Chris said:
Can they be used as a bridging ladder?
No. They are not strong enough to support the weight of a 4x4 whist bridging a gap. As you are able to stack Maxtrax one on top of the other, you could argue that you could stack three Maxtrax on top of each other and their combined strength might be able to cope with bridging. But if you can afford six Maxtrax, then you can afford a nice man to dig you out when you get stuck to save you getting dirty!
The Maxtrax have lugs that stick out on both the top and the bottom. The ones on top are angled to engage with, and lock into, your tyres tread pattern. The ones on the bottom are there to bite into the slippery/loose surface and stop the Maxtrax from uselessly firing out from underneath the tyre. Do not spin a wheel up on a Maxtrax, it can damage the Maxtrax but it can also tear your tire to shreds.
I own a pair, but haven't used them in anger on my vehicle, (I always managed to back out when forward motion ceased), but I have used Maxtrax to extract other vehicles from sand. In my experience they worked brilliantly. Just clear the sand from in front of the wheel, stick the Maxtrax in so that it'll engage with the tyre, then drive up and onto the Maxtrax (they are sloped at each end), once on the board accelerate to gain momentum and keep going, letting the rear tyres pass over the Maxtrax as well to gain extra benefit.
I paid £185 for mine, but that was three years ago now. I believe that they have been redesigned in the last year or so, to both improve the design and make the genuine Maxtrax identifiable against some substandard copies that started to appear on the market.
Maxtrax - A fantastic bit of kit, if your planning on playing in the sand and other lose surfaces.