Winter recovery questions

[Sean Buick 76]

That was the only time my 91 2500 left me stranded. That truck was amazing. I added a new crate engine to it shortly and I had rebuilt the trans the year before. That truck made me a ton of money over the years till I bought my 05 to use for work.

 

[thinger2]

It is a real tough call about staying in the vehicle or leaving.
If you hit black ice and hit another car and you are both still on the highway?
If you can both drive out of that really quick you do it.
Do not stop and stand between the cars and take pictures on the highway.
Somewhere behind you is a an 80 thousand pound semi or a 75 year old man with a 40 foot motor home and if your car slid on the ice just imagine what will happen when those guys slam on the brakes.
Even if you are in the ditch.
Because they are going in the ditch too.
People think that the car is a space ship in the same way they think an aeroplane is a space ship.
And it is. Right up untill the crash when your running around in your shorts and flip flops trying to drag your wife and kids out of the blown airbags before a truck slams into you.
And then there you are.
Trying to run in your friggen bathroom shoes.
In a multi vehicle wreck and you have noplace to go and no way to get warm.
In the motorcycle world we call it "dont dress for the ride, dress for the slide"
Look at it this way.
When my wife and I go to Vegas the plane goes across quite a bit of rough and uninhabited terrain.
We wear boots and thermals and have heavy coats.
The plane probably wont go down.
But, if it does?
It would be pretty damn silly to freeze to death in a suit and a cocktail dress

 

[Erik the Awful]

I live in the south. I've always carried an "emergency jacket" in my vehicles, and when my kids were young they thought it was stupid. Over the years they each ran out of the house to go somewhere without a coat and had to borrow the emergency jacket, and now that they're grown they carry emergency jackets or blankets in their trunk. Even if you're not doing recoveries, it's a smart idea. I learned it from my dad.

 

[tinfoil_hat]

I had a chance to test this stuff yesterday.
We went Christmas tree hunting on an old fire road at about 6500 feet. There were 11 of us in three rigs. Seven in my Suburban, two people in dad's 1500 Sierra and two people in my son in law's Tacoma. There was a lot more snow than we usually see on this road. It was about 16" deep on the road. We usually go out in early November so we were late this year. Right away we started passing flatlanders from the valley in their $80k mall crawlers and tricked out Jeeps. We finally reached a steep uphill turn that was pretty nasty and we decided to turn around and go back. In fact the reason this turn was so ugly is because the Jeeps had gotten themselves stuck here and they churned up the snow. We managed to get our three rigs turned around after several tries. About that time, along comes a convoy of four pickups who managed to get themselves stuck on the turn, which also blocked us in.

Now just for the record, the Suburban never got stuck. Both of our other rigs did, but not the 'burb. I bet I could have made it another mile or more. The Jeep owners were rude to us and I think it's because I breezed right past them and turned around in one attempt. To be fair, I had the weight advantage with seven people, 42 gallons of fuel, 200+lbs of gear, and I was the only one in the entire crowd with actual snow tires.

To get to the point....
Here is the recovery equipment I was carrying: Two 20' lengths of tow chain, two 20' tow straps, a come-along, tire chains, a chainsaw, a snow shovel, a pick, a round-nosed shovel. Our other two rigs both had round-nosed shovels and dad had a length of chain. Guess which single piece of equipment got all these vehicles unstuck? It was the snow shovel.

Next we drove out to a place in the highway to look for trees and by now we were at about 6700 ft. The snow was maybe 24" deep, considerably deeper where the plows had made a bank along the road. We got our trees loaded up and here comes this guy in a big diesel Ram 4x4. He tries to park on the shoulder but he goes into the ditch. It wasn't that bad at first. He was facing downhill with just the passenger tire in the ditch. If he had straightened his wheels and tried rocking it a bit he probably could have driven right out. So of course he turned his wheel all the way over and floored it, which made his rear end slide into the ditch and buried his front end up to the roof. He had absolutely zero tools in his truck. A dozen vehicles drove past him and not a single one offered to help or even slowed down to see if he was all right. It only took two tries for dad to pull him out with a chain. He was very grateful.

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of all this.

The moral of the story is:
1. Carry the appropriate equipment to self-recover.
2. Be aware of road conditions and think ahead.
3. If you do get stuck, stop and think. Don't get yourself stuck worse than you already are.
4. Help a fellow motorist in need if it's safe to do so. If not, call for help.
5. Carry waterproof, insulated clothing and gloves. I stayed dry through this whole adventure which means i stayed warm.
6. There is no substitute for good tires.
7. Shovel.
8. Shovel

 

[boostedpontiac]

I had a chance to test this stuff yesterday.
We went Christmas tree hunting on an old fire road at about 6500 feet. There were 11 of us in three rigs. Seven in my Suburban, two people in dad's 1500 Sierra and two people in my son in law's Tacoma. There was a lot more snow than we usually see on this road. It was about 16" deep on the road. We usually go out in early November so we were late this year. Right away we started passing flatlanders from the valley in their $80k mall crawlers and tricked out Jeeps. We finally reached a steep uphill turn that was pretty nasty and we decided to turn around and go back. In fact the reason this turn was so ugly is because the Jeeps had gotten themselves stuck here and they churned up the snow. We managed to get our three rigs turned around after several tries. About that time, along comes a convoy of four pickups who managed to get themselves stuck on the turn, which also blocked us in.

Now just for the record, the Suburban never got stuck. Both of our other rigs did, but not the 'burb. I bet I could have made it another mile or more. The Jeep owners were rude to us and I think it's because I breezed right past them and turned around in one attempt. To be fair, I had the weight advantage with seven people, 42 gallons of fuel, 200+lbs of gear, and I was the only one in the entire crowd with actual snow tires.

To get to the point....
Here is the recovery equipment I was carrying: Two 20' lengths of tow chain, two 20' tow straps, a come-along, tire chains, a chainsaw, a snow shovel, a pick, a round-nosed shovel. Our other two rigs both had round-nosed shovels and dad had a length of chain. Guess which single piece of equipment got all these vehicles unstuck? It was the snow shovel.

Next we drove out to a place in the highway to look for trees and by now we were at about 6700 ft. The snow was maybe 24" deep, considerably deeper where the plows had made a bank along the road. We got our trees loaded up and here comes this guy in a big diesel Ram 4x4. He tries to park on the shoulder but he goes into the ditch. It wasn't that bad at first. He was facing downhill with just the passenger tire in the ditch. If he had straightened his wheels and tried rocking it a bit he probably could have driven right out. So of course he turned his wheel all the way over and floored it, which made his rear end slide into the ditch and buried his front end up to the roof. He had absolutely zero tools in his truck. A dozen vehicles drove past him and not a single one offered to help or even slowed down to see if he was all right. It only took two tries for dad to pull him out with a chain. He was very grateful.

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of all this.

The moral of the story is:
1. Carry the appropriate equipment to self-recover.
2. Be aware of road conditions and think ahead.
3. If you do get stuck, stop and think. Don't get yourself stuck worse than you already are.
4. Help a fellow motorist in need if it's safe to do so. If not, call for help.
5. Carry waterproof, insulated clothing and gloves. I stayed dry through this whole adventure which means i stayed warm.
6. There is no substitute for good tires.
7. Shovel.
8. Shovel

Thats a good call, I just bought a shovel for the truck. Ive been stuck before with some of my other vehicles and the shovel seemed to be the most effective tool for the job each time in heavy snow.