I got seriously stuck in the snow on Monday. I was just barely off the road on a snowmobile trail. I tried to do a multi point turn to turn around and get off the trail however my front left tire came off the hard pack snow and broke through about 3.5 feet of powder and that was it. I tried locking my center diff and it came on, then I dropped into 4low and i was trying to pull forward and reverse to get out. However as I was doing this my VSC kept coming on and stopping me just short of being able to get out of the hole and ultimately just making it worse for me. I ended up framed out along the front left quadrant including my front differential of the car and had to call a tow truck to pull me 30 feet back to the road...
Why was my VSC coming on and cutting power to my tires during this ordeal?
FWIW i may have messed up by trying to lock the center diff after I was stuck. But it sounded like everything came on properly and when i got back on the road the Center diff was definitely locked

There is a VSC disable mod to eliminate the throttle cutting out when you dont want it to.
You could have also disconnected the plug on your brake master cylinder to to accomplish the same the but you would loose the atrac too.
What you encountered was normal, it is just trying to eliminate wheel spin which is what you needed to get unstuck.

Center diff lock should turn off VSC, and you shouldn't have anything other than ATRAC during 4low. I think what you where encountering was ATRAC, was it a grinding sound behind the pedals? ATRAC works below a certain RPM and I think it limits wheel spin enough it basically "limits" power sometimes.

^ This. It was likely your ATRAC working with the tires that were slipping. If you had kept the RPMs right around 1500-2k it probably would have pulled you right out, but I'm guessing you were letting off the gas each time it did it. I've had ATRAC pull me right out of sloppy mud and wet ice/snow, but it takes a little bit of sitting in place until it can figure out which tire has traction.

Okay so that makes sense and is more understandable, this was my first encounter with being stuck off road in my 4runner since I bought it
I was unaware that the ATRAC system worked like that because it sounded exactly like the vsc/traction control does when I start sliding in an icy turn or something
Thanks for the input!
After this experience I’m thinking I may invest in some max trax anyways just so I can be even better prepared

Be careful fooling around on snowmobile trails.
It sounds like something I did in the wayback...spent the night in the back of the Pathfinder. Whoops.

Your basically high centered at that point, when you get off the hard packed snow. 4x4 is not going to do anything but dig you deeper.
It takes traction boards like you said...or trees work in a pinch...shovels are a good thing...winch is really nice.

Yeah lesson definitely learned.... I was just looking for someplace to take my dog on a run
I’m gonna be investing when I can in those maxtrax and a wheel lift getup for my hi lift jack

You always kinda figure out what you need, when you don't have it. Even with a winch, I still almost got stuck high sided on a boulder this past weekend because I started pulling the boulder with my skid plate. Fortunately we were able to dislodge it on a reverse try, but that even goes to show you can't always rely on every tool in the arsenal.