Stuck in snow, advice needed

My only 2 cents is that I have a lot better luck clearing under the truck with a garden hoe than a shovel. The hoe will let you actually drag the snow out vs the shovel where you'll find yourself trying to keep the snow from falling off of the blade. Shovels are still useful in the snow, but a long handled hoe will let you clear out under the truck faster.

I usually bring snowshoes as well. If I have to walk out I'll be following my tracks but snowshoes will make it easier.

Oh, and you'll need to be aired up if you're going to chain up; it's pretty much impossible to keep the chains tensioned while aired down. It is possible to run chains up front provided you're running a skinny front tire AND YOU TEST IT BEFORE YOU NEED IT. I run 235/85 16's and I have clearance up front with my particular tires (Nokian Hakkapeliittas for winter and General Grabber AT2 the rest of the year). I use an older set of the Peerless style chains, like this:


Mine don't have the newer auto-tension system so I can't speak on that.

 

Nothing exceeds like excess!

When the snow is flowing over the hood, and clogging that non functional skewp, You will be glad you left those chains in the garage!

REAL Tips for getting out of snow.

Forget air pressure, you are more likely high centered. Deal with that.

Only go out the way you came in. The tracks are packed, and the center snow is "plowed". Plus, You know the snow isn't gonna get deeper.

Shovel out underneath, not just the tire tracks. When high centered, there is very little weight on the tires. A scoop shovel with the flattest available handle angle works the best. As mentioned, snow doesn't like to fill a shovel when it's under the truck. But Just keep at it.

Clear out 3 feet in front of your rig, and 8 feet behind. Down to solid! Rock forward, then go hard in reverse. When you stop, shovel out again. You need to make a clearing to get up some speed. Accept it! And don't try to save yourself from clearing out snow. You will do it eventually.

Skip any thought of high engine revs. Power is the last thing you need to get out.

Once you start moving backwards, STAY in the track. The logic there is, If you got in this far, you can get out.

But..

If you got in on momentum, "sometimes" it works to put the wheel track under the center of the truck .

When shoveling out a path that was obviously dragging center, every shovel full counts. No need to clear to the ground, but keep making the path longer. In your pic, I would just throw snow out from between the wheel tracks all the way back to the line of cars waiting on you.
Not deep, just a skim to below the rub height.

I've been stuck many times. But I'm home safe and sound now. It snowed 12 inches last night. The drive up to go skiing tomorrow morning should be a breeze ;-)

 

Boys that there is one of them damn shape shifter things!

Mods: might need to move this one over to the
BIGFOOT, Aliens, and The Supernatural thread.

There's some weird shit going on in this photo.

 

I had the xbull ones off Amazon. They helped get me out but one was in pieces by the end and the other snapped in half. This was only my second time using them and really wasn’t spinning the tires much which will tear them up

 

Yes trac control fully disengaged and crawl control really helped after we dug my car out. I was in 4lo with locker on and crawl control on the lowest setting. I let it do its thing and it was the perfect amount of tire spin to catch the recovery boards, much better then blipping the throttle myself

 

Some of these replies are cracking me up and lots of great info thanks everyone!

 

I call BS. I see where you high centered and had to back up.

OP, Seriously though, not much you can do when the snow pack lightens the load off your tires. There are tricks(many mentioned here) that you can try and sometimes that, along with all the traction aids can get you out. Sometimes not. In the mountains people get stuck all the time in the snow, pretty normal I have pulled two or three vehicles out of bad spots in one day. People thinking their 4wd means it can go anywhere.

Three schools of thought on snow driving. Heavy vehicle with tall tires, lots of clearance and torque. Or lighter vehicle and tires with large surface area to float over the snow, or tracked vehicle. And you can still get stuck. Snow is unpredictable from powder to hard as rock.

 

Not many 4500lb+ trucks pawing and clawing thru snow are going to float.

 

Yeah, Riiiiggghhhhttt!!!!!!

 

The Skewp is actually functional for this isn't it? Creates positive pressure below the truck to keep it from high-centering and burying the frame? I haven't been stuck yet this winter in my Pro and I assumed that was why.

 

OP, sorry if I missed it, but what tire size and lift do you have?

Also, you say you used crawl control. Did you try MTS with it?

 

OP needs more mods....

 

I have no snow driving experience, but from the context that you've given us, I'd say more girlfriends lol. Hope your bro's in flops helped too!

 

that would pretty much solve it

 

I'm gonna have to remember this one. Never thought about it, but makes a good bit of sense. Esp for Utah sand and snow.

 

For OP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centers_in_the_United_States

 

33s Cooper st maxx, lifted about 2 inches on kings/ aal. Did not use MTS, should have tried it but we just dug a lot and used the 4 recovery boards with crawl control and it worked so I didn’t change anything. We had to keep using the recovery boards about another 5+ times until I was eventually able to reverse back to where that Subaru is in the photo

 

I’m definitely bringing a garden hoe next time as well, that would really help digging out under the car because like you said it was a struggle and I had a full size shovel