I was 4-wheeling on sand dunes here in Eastern Washington several years ago, and while I was going up a dune my engine caught fire and the engine and lost power. My friends and I put out the fire with beer but then we were completely stuck, facing up a sand dune (and there wasn't any way we could roll back, the only way out of the sand was up the dune).
So I put the truck in the slowest crawling gear, and turned the starter over, and the starter motor powered us almost all the way up the sand dune! It would have powered us all the way up and over but the battery died. It was maybe 50 feet or so, of steep, deep sand. I was amazed at what my starter motor could do. The starter lasted forever after that too!