Snow chains..

[Bill Abbay]

Ah, yes... beautiful Bakersfield. I remember spending a week there one night....

Ah, yes, I can relate. [b]BUT, for readers of the FGRV forum only, I will share with you a closely guarded secret camp spot, not far from Bakersfield: Buena Vista (or Webb) Lake. You'd probably only want to go there in the winter, when the rates and temperatures are much lower. Hook ups, on the lake, wake up with the mist rising off the water ... really very pretty and totally non-Bakersfield. Since this is off topic I'll stop here: Buena Vista. Just don't tell anybody

Re: 4WD: I often use 4WD on hilly, twisty gravel roads, not because I'm likely to get stuck but because it reduces wheel spin and tire wear. On the very few occasions I am in sand, yes, I can often go quite a ways before I bog down. But if the "bog" is a batch of really fluffy sand and the "down" part is axle deep, it might be a tad late to go 4WD. And I don't have a winch...

[pjanits]

Dan,

Minnesota may be snow country but its flat. When you go off the road you're in someone's field. In the mountains when you go off the road you go down for miles. And I think that might hurt a lot.
I remember leaving Yellowstone from the East entrance and looking down and thinking I was glad it was July. ( still had snow over 7500 ft though.) That was the scariest piece of skinny road I was ever on.

[Dan Meyer]

Pjanits said:
"Minnesota may be snow country but its flat...."

Parts of Minnesota are table flat; however there are a surprising number of large hills, usually near river valleys, but also in towns like Saint Paul and Duluth. There are no drop offs where you will starve to death before hitting bottom (like in Colorado), but the hills can be tricky when slippery none the less.

When the going gets really tough around here (for example, the blizzard tonight in northwestern Minnesota) some of the main roads (I-94 and MN 210) are closed to all traffic, chains or not.

-- Dan Meyer

[Roger H]

Re: 4WD: I can often go quite a ways before I bog down. But if the "bog" is a batch of really fluffy sand and the "down" part is axle deep, it might be a tad late to go 4WD. And I don't have a winch...

Yes, yes, Bill... you're right on. I recall some wise old sage once told me (as he was tooling around the desert in his 2wd '67 Ford pickup) "the only thing 4WD does for you is makes the places you get stuck really expensive for the tow trucks to tow you out."

I've never forgotten that!

Roger

[Brian B-P]

...some wise old sage once told me (as he was tooling around the desert in his 2wd '67 Ford pickup)...

A friend of mine used to tour the forestry roads of interior British Columbia in his (rear wheel drive) Datsun 510. He enjoyed watching the 4x4 trucks get stuck on the same roads that he drove through; the difference was that he chose his path wisely, while the truck "drivers" tried to blast through randomly. A good brain behind the wheel beats horsepower and 4WD hardware every time. Surely, the same applies with a trailer attached to the back.

[Gina D.]

If I was a "Dirt Eater", the name the forest service gives the Jeeps and Broncos and motorcyles that go on the nasty dirt roads up here, I would certainly like a 4wd. There are many Mountain roads here that go way back in the wilderness that I will never see unless I go with someone else set up for off road travel.

My neighbor has a 4wd jeep set up for just this (And I had to teach him to chain up here once because he got stuck in his snowy driveway) and I am sure it does great in the dirt and ruts and all that. It sits high, it is made for crawling with power on nasty raods. BUT, he doesn't race on them, he drives on them. He too sees guys stuck when they could have gone slow on what looks like a seemingly obvious safer route, but they barreled through the "easy" way.

But this poll is about snow travel, a completely different beast. Look at Donnas video she posted with the snow kids today... ya gotta be smarter than the machine and know how to use it, and when it is useLESS.

[Gina D.]

Snooping for my route up to Oregon, I came across this little bit of info

http://167.131.0.179/Pages/RCMap.asp?mainN...icNav=ChainLaws

Basically, it says you HAVE to chain up trailers if they have brakes under most chain up conditions.

I wonder if they make em as small as mine?

Nah.. Thats the time to go for coffee, I think.

[Donna D.]

Basically, it says you HAVE to chain up trailers if they have brakes under most chain up conditions.

I wonder if they make em as small as mine?

Nah.. Thats the time to go for coffee, I think.

Great that you're planning ahead Gina. ODOT closed the Siskiyou Pass for about 12 hours ...hummmm a week ago or so for about 12 hours.

See you in a couple of weeks!!