Wow, what a weekend....
Drove up to Big Bear via Lucerne on Thursday night. I think 38 and 330 were both closed at this point. 18 up from Lucerne was littered with abandoned cars at 11pm-midnight when we were driving up. Cruiser did great. High, no chains, no problems. I was actually getting kinda bummed that there was no challenge.....that would change.
My parents live out on the far east end of the valley past Erwin Lake for anyone familiar, on private roads off of county roads, both of which are not maintained by the city. Once we turned off 38 on Erwin Ranch Rd things started getting dicey. They had plowed earlier that day sometime, but the accumulated snow drifts had managed to grow to about 3-4ft on the right hand side of the road and tapered down to 2ft on the left hand side. I managed to find the balance of not falling into the ditch on the left side, but not get pulled into the drift on the right side. We were center diff locked in low at this point, just trying to maintain momentum.
We got all the way out to my parents house before the real fun started. We couldnt find their driveway because the 6ft markers were covered. Once my sister and I guesstimated where the entrance was we had to plow down the berm. I got turned sideways on the road, locked it up and just started ramming it down. Once the berm was gone we started up my parents long driveway. Lots of drive, reverse, drive. We got about halfway up when we hit the snow drift of all snow drifts. When we hit it snow exploded up and over the cruiser and we came to a dead stop in pitch black. My headlights were buried under the drift. I managed to back it out a few feet and try and muscle in, but we had to call it and walk the rest.
I'm 6'5" and the snow was up to my hips in places. My sister and fiance both nearly needed a ladder to get out of the snow. I havent seen anything like this since I was a kid.
The next day we shoveled the wheels out, put all 4 RUD chains on and managed to get a little free space to move back and forth. I was just trying to get out of the driveway so when the tractor came I wouldnt be blocking it. In that deep snow I managed to break one of the RUD chains on the rear passenger side. Not catastrophic, but ripped the tensioner right out. Mind you, this was going less than 5mph, no high rev tire spinning, and in soft powder. Pretty crazy. OPh yeah, the grader got stuck out there on Friday too. I've never seen a piece of equipment that large get stuck before. That was also pretty crazy.
We finally got plowed out on Saturday and we hit the slopes with blue bird skies and feather down powder. I've never snowboarded in powder before, so we did some off trail runs and had a great time. Also did some very grueling cross country skiing on Sunday morning.
Anyway, sorry for being so long winded, but this was quite an experience. I have no interest in ever going snow wheeling again. I found the main problem was not snow build up on the axles, but rather getting so packed under the chassis that it actually prevented the weight of the truck from sitting on the tires. You're not going anywhere at that point except under your truck to shovel.
Drove up to Big Bear via Lucerne on Thursday night. I think 38 and 330 were both closed at this point. 18 up from Lucerne was littered with abandoned cars at 11pm-midnight when we were driving up. Cruiser did great. High, no chains, no problems. I was actually getting kinda bummed that there was no challenge.....that would change.
My parents live out on the far east end of the valley past Erwin Lake for anyone familiar, on private roads off of county roads, both of which are not maintained by the city. Once we turned off 38 on Erwin Ranch Rd things started getting dicey. They had plowed earlier that day sometime, but the accumulated snow drifts had managed to grow to about 3-4ft on the right hand side of the road and tapered down to 2ft on the left hand side. I managed to find the balance of not falling into the ditch on the left side, but not get pulled into the drift on the right side. We were center diff locked in low at this point, just trying to maintain momentum.
We got all the way out to my parents house before the real fun started. We couldnt find their driveway because the 6ft markers were covered. Once my sister and I guesstimated where the entrance was we had to plow down the berm. I got turned sideways on the road, locked it up and just started ramming it down. Once the berm was gone we started up my parents long driveway. Lots of drive, reverse, drive. We got about halfway up when we hit the snow drift of all snow drifts. When we hit it snow exploded up and over the cruiser and we came to a dead stop in pitch black. My headlights were buried under the drift. I managed to back it out a few feet and try and muscle in, but we had to call it and walk the rest.
I'm 6'5" and the snow was up to my hips in places. My sister and fiance both nearly needed a ladder to get out of the snow. I havent seen anything like this since I was a kid.
The next day we shoveled the wheels out, put all 4 RUD chains on and managed to get a little free space to move back and forth. I was just trying to get out of the driveway so when the tractor came I wouldnt be blocking it. In that deep snow I managed to break one of the RUD chains on the rear passenger side. Not catastrophic, but ripped the tensioner right out. Mind you, this was going less than 5mph, no high rev tire spinning, and in soft powder. Pretty crazy. OPh yeah, the grader got stuck out there on Friday too. I've never seen a piece of equipment that large get stuck before. That was also pretty crazy.
We finally got plowed out on Saturday and we hit the slopes with blue bird skies and feather down powder. I've never snowboarded in powder before, so we did some off trail runs and had a great time. Also did some very grueling cross country skiing on Sunday morning.
Anyway, sorry for being so long winded, but this was quite an experience. I have no interest in ever going snow wheeling again. I found the main problem was not snow build up on the axles, but rather getting so packed under the chassis that it actually prevented the weight of the truck from sitting on the tires. You're not going anywhere at that point except under your truck to shovel.
