My dad use to all kinds of similar crazy manuevers with the backhoe. Used to scare and impress the crap out me when I was a kid. I bet he and his mud-riding friends would have liked the log trick.
I have a friend that ran his articulated wheeled dozer off the back side of a dam that was built into the side of a hill. I spent hours with a wench pulling that monster free from the mud and trees. Chaining up a couple of the trees we cut out of the way just might have worked.