deepest amount of snow you've successfully driven through?

Depends on what your driving.
12' of snow on a snowmobile, except it's more driving on then driving through.

5feet 5 inches it was a drift 40 to 50 feet long.It was freshly fallen from the night before.We had to stop half way through and clean off the hood because it was piling up over the windshield.

Dead Man's Pass, Oregon...no chains, in a blizzard. Scared shitless with a wife and kid in tow. Kid thinks I'm superman to this day. A trucker lost his life the same week in the same storm.

I feel blessed, lucky. And after a shitload of things I've done in my life, it still makes me shiver.

18" (bumper height) of fluff snow thanks to front wheel drive.

I can't believe no one called bullshit on my post here.Trolls must be busy today.





This is how we get around in the winter months at work.No other options. We even fabricated custom bumpers to prevent the snow smashing the rad's into the engine. UNFUCKING STOPABLE.

hey, i was coming to call bs! lol!

ok that truck is badass and i am super jealous! even though i have nowhere to go in something like that. a badass truck like that is incentive to make a life that needs that truck!

I always waited until there were at least someone else's tire tracks to follow.

Ya my truck is a 2007 GMC 2500 these are the tracks i bought for mine.




I like them because of the extra lift they got, havent had a problem yet and ran them 800km last winter.

It looks like you can flip easily.

Yep.. I got a skid in the back of my truck that hold's 300 liters of metanol and a 12 horse honda engine for busting hyrates in gas piplines.Your right, side hills are tricky but going slow and common sence will get you there.

Those looks awesome and seriously fun.

If you count having to stop and shovel some it was about 3 feet in a deuce and a half.

About hood height on a Jeep Scrambler (CJ8)...Had 31" x 10.5" tires, and it was only a half mile in to camp...

Last Edited by SnakeAirlines on 07/05/2014 03:27 PM

Once the depth of snow reaches the under-carriage of your car, the friction becomes too great for the traction of the tires to overcome.


I grew up in Rochester NY.

Only if it piles up underneath, as in your tires get farther away from the ground and are actually riding up on snow...

If your tires continue to dig, and you are plowing with the front end as opposed to riding up on it with your skid plate, your forward motion will continue...

I consistently could plow through drifts that were well over the hood of that Scrambler, as the front end stayed down and did not rise up 'on' the snow...

This is one reason old VW Bugs were prized for snow before the explosion of 4WD and FWD...Those old tall skinny tires with the engine right over them would cut deep and push the vehicle through shit it really should not have been out in...

lol

You tuck your mini cooper into your backpack and trudge through 6 to 8 foot snow banks quite easily, thank you.

About 20 inches with a 4x4...

Why Not just buy a PLOW?

If you got snow with heavy density rather than powder, there is no such thing as "unstoppable"; unless your driving a Cat D-9. Many thousands spent on chassis mods on your Dodge. Nice, but a center articulated plow would really make you "unstoppable" at least as long as you stay on some kind of decent roadbed.

Original poster doesn't qualify the type of snow. Wet snow at warmer temperatures like you might encounter in places in NY and Penn is not the same as cold dry snow.

I lived on the south shore of Lake Superior for ten years in four different places.

Wind blown dry snow can create hard drifts that will lift a vehicle up sometimes a couple of feet only to have you drop in and high center when you hit a spot that isn't quite as hard packed.

Wet snow can freeze after the sun goes down creating yet another condition.

Now I am in west Montana where three feet of dry powder is a piece of cake for 4 X 4 (I'm talking without a plow)

Of course, I own a one ton 4X4 with a plow now...

What do you want to know about the 20 different kinds of ice?

"Wind blown dry snow can create hard drifts that will lift a vehicle up sometimes a couple of feet only to have you drop in and high center when you hit a spot that isn't quite as hard packed."

I was out plowing driveways one time; first pass I would run through with the plow off the ground at maybe four inches.

Hit a hard drift and it lifted the plow and the whole rig - carried right up on top and went about 20 feet which was the length of the rig - before it broke through the crust.

This was after dark already perhaps 8 pm. Totally hung up, the plow was resting on hard packed snow, the axles, even the frame and underside of the engine. Took hours of shoveling before I got the wheels to hitting the ground again.

One of the tougher lessons...

Thank you for posting this video, I really did not know you could turn an ordinary truck into a snowmobile in an hour and a half.


The Minnesotan in me appreciates this!

OP doesn't specify the road surface type either. Gravel roads are something of a bitch when it is dry or muddy, but the advantage in winter is there are always a few sharp points sticking through the hard pack and/or ice surface.

Blacktop or concrete is worse in winter.

A quarter inch of ice with a freezing rain puts almost everything in the ditch...

best car Ive drive in 16+ was a Volvo v70 wagon
i think it was 2003

i was passing all sorts of cars just stuck

I drive in cutlines and heavy forestred roads at work.No windswept snow is ever present only accumulation.Really no need to put a plow on my truck at the end of the winter season is where it starts to get deep. But we must run these roads everyday to check oil and gas wells.We stager our tracks all year so infact we are packing and plowing at the same time if you catch my drift.

Also some of these roads would not alow a plow mounted truck to pass due to the very sharp inclines and declines that we need to transit.Small creeks are the worst. Drop 3 ft instantly and right back up again after.

Oh and by the way that's not my truck i drive a GMC.

One amazing thing I saw about 196x was a road grader in the ditch.

Road was concrete and built up about five feet above the fields to the west and east (N-S highway). Not that much snow - maybe only 4-5 inches but with a lot of wind. Previous snow had a glaze so the new stuff was free to go wherever it wanted.

The wind from the west was filling the ditch on the east side level full and that was a wide and deep ditch.

That road grader had a big V plow in front, the regular blade underneath, and a sweep plow on the right.

He was chained up.

And totally buried in that east side ditch.

I figure he had fallen asleep. They ask those guys to put in all kinds of hours and that blizzard was already 48 hours old.

When the driver hit that section of road that was perfectly safe with no snow drifts it was the driver that drifted off... to sleep.

2 and 1/2 foot, but I was in a SUV.

>>>THIS<<<

Driving a Santa Fe, all wheel drive.

What I want to know is how much wood do you normally put up ahead?

Damed days are getting shorter already and that semi-load of firewood I ordered hasn't shown up yet.

Colder it gets outside the warmer I get it inside. I don't buy firewood by the semi-load so I have to sit and shiver.

Next plan is for a wood fired hot tub inside my greenhouse.

36 inches in a diesel K5 with a plow.Had the plow down around a foot and a half and fully tilted.We drove to town(18 miles)in around 40 minutes.It made the trip there and back fine or so I thought.Lost the band on third gear a few days later.Guess I pushed the old girl to hard.

Deeper than oil pan better not stop... ;)
(Wisconsins a bitch in winter)