Getting a vehicle stuck is at the very least time consuming and at worst life threatening.

I have gotten many of vehicles stuck throughout my life and have helped even more get unstuck.  Most of the time I am helping some person who has no idea what to do other than hit the gas and hope for the best.  The best will unlikely work.  Now here in the Hood (see previous post) it is not a matter of if but when you will get stuck and we hope a tree or pole is not in the mix.  Now we have had a string of crazy weather this year.  We had snow, then got rain and cold again.  This made for a very nice layer of clear ice as a base.  We then had a big dump of cold fluffy snow followed by a bigger dump of warmer wet snow, also called Sierra Cement and followed today by rain.  Now rain falling on snow which is on top of ice is the perfect storm for no traction.  It is like God decided to cover the roads with KY jelly and say have fun.

I needed to get to the post office today to mail some letters at the closest town, population 50, so I headed out down the KY drive.  Once I hit the highway I knew I would be fine but I first had to get down my drive and then the secondary road.  My confidence was high since I was driving my Jeep, with aggressive tires and lockers if needed, and not my full size F-350 with the turning radius of a semi-truck.  As I drove down the drive, in low gear and slow, the jeep was slipping and sliding all over the place.  The road was a mess.  I made it to the US Postal Service and returned home to seek shelter and a warm beverage, but found my neighbor stuck in the drive I had to ascend to seek shelter.  So as any of us would do in the Hood, I gave a helping hand.  Now his truck was sideways in the road and trees and poles were the most emanate danger, other than having no traction.  With the help of my winch, years of experience, and the fact it was not my vehicle, I was able to get him back on the road in 15 minutes.

Now that I had him out of the drive I could safely ascend the road.  Slush sucks, I was all over the place trying to get up and ended up in 4-low to make the final push.  Now most people think gas it to get momentum.  Now this does work in the beginning and will get you further down/up the road, but once friction and gravity wins and your momentum is dwindled to a crawl, slow is king.  It does go against our macho male instinct but it works.  I put the Jeep in first gear, in 4-low, and slowly crawled up the drive having tea and croissants as I ascended.  Every time I tried to accelerate, I would slip and stall.  Flatlanders, remember this, sometimes slow is the best approach on slippery roads.  If you gas it you throw the surface material away, that is your best material for traction, and are left with the slick bottom and your tires will dig a hole or polish the surface to a mirror finish below.

Now like I was saying, here in the Hood we do get stuck a lot.  My friend was up a few days prior and we, I mean me, since I was driving her less than ideal Hood mobile, got it stuck in a drive way on our way to a dinner date with a neighbor.  My first mistake, and I should know better, was to turn around in a driveway below the road.  Snow 101- always go up hill because it’s easier to back down than up. But I went down and got stuck.  But in the Hood we are always happy to help.  The neighbor came over with a shovel and we cleared a tire path, pushed like hell and got the car back on the road.  Tip #1- You should always carry a shovel in your car when you travel in snow country.  This can usually get you out of most stuck situations.

The day before my same friend got her car stuck in my driveway due to the ice on the road.  now this was before the 7-Eleven slush fest, but it was without traction never the less.  Now this was an easy fix.  I removed the excess snow, using a shovel as indicated in Tip #1, and applied a strip of sand about 10 ft long in front of all 4 tires of the car and drove right out.  Tip #2- Sand, dirt, gravel, or kitty litter makes a great traction agent to get you out of slippery situations. But don’t forget the shovel you keep in your car.

Chains are a great traction device for non 4-wheel drive vehicles.  They can dig a hole very quick but the tires do have great traction.  The problem is you have great traction on the rear tires, or the front in front wheel drive vehicles, but the front tires are like ski’s.  I got a late Propane delivery this year and the truck decided to go up the hill further than he should have.  His rear tires had great traction but he could not steer.  The end result was he ended up sideways on the road and a 6 hour delay in getting out and an expensive tow truck bill.  Tip #3- chains work great but remember, they only work on one half of your tires.

So one of the things we like to do in the Hood is go snow jeeping, the snowmobiles don’t like us so much.  Driving over 6 feet of snowy road does have its challenges.  There are two very important factors.  First is air in you tires are bad.  We deflate our tires to 5 lbs to 3 lbs of air pressure.  In other words you let out as much air in you tires as you can without breaking the bead and leaving enough room so your rim does not hit the flat tire.  Yes you are driving on snow with 4 flat tires.  This does several things.  First it triples your tire foot print, kind of like a snow shoe, allowing more tire tread on the snow for traction and keeping you from digging down.  You also get more traction from the sides since your tires are like a mushroom.  The other benefit is the tire is more pliable and molds to the ground surface allowing better traction.  Tip #4- let air out of your tires for better traction.  I have used this method to get out of all sorts of vehicle situations from snow, mud, and defiantly sand.

Us boys were coming back from a snow Jeep trip and running late for dinner and the girls were getting, lets say anxious.  We got to my drive, the same one stated above, and what do we see but a delivery truck sideways in the road and a group a people discussing what to do.  I accessed the situation and the solution came easy.  I hooked the back of my Jeep to the nearest tree with out even talking to the crowd, so it would not slide forward, and hooked the wich cable from the front of my Jeep to the rear of the 3 ton truck.  Now the driver, who’s back of the truck was 24 inches from a power pole, was skeptical and wanted to jump into his rig and help.  Now I was in a hurry to eat and told him to stay out-of-the-way and cranked the winch, sliding him sideways and parallel to the road so he could get out of my path to dinner.  Tip #5- if you are spending time in snow country, have a winch or come-a-long to pull you out of trouble.  If you are traveling with a friend, carry a jerk strap or chain to help each other out of trouble.

So be prepared when traveling in snow.  Other than the tips mentioned above, you should always have the following because getting stranded in the mountains can turn bad in a flash.

  • Good shoes, gloves, jacket
  • Flashlight with batteries
  • Shovel and tarp
  • Water, food, and blankets
  • Common sence

The World According to Jeff