Snow Day questions

Went up to the Sierra Buttes to meet a friend with his Cherokee. We took the Cal - Ida road up towards Eureka Diggins'. Got to a point where the road was entirely covered in snow with no vehicles tracks. Not too deep. Had a little crust on top that would support a light weight quad or other type personal vehicle but not a truck. As I had another vehicle with me this time I decided to try and get further in the snow this trip. I only made it about 50 yards before I got stuck. Just four tires digging a hole. Didn't have the ability to air down with no pump to air back up. (Now on my list of things to add). Lot of snow build up between rear tires and mud flaps. (Now on list to trim down). What else improves snow trips, short of spending 50 grand for those snow cat tracks? Some recent photos of snow days shows guys getting in pretty far. I could not.



This photo was taken after I got my truck out of the snow, backed it out and parked, to prepare for hiking.

 

I would def invest in a set or two of MaxTrax for those "stuck" situations.

 

Good wench, . . . I mean winch would be nice to have.

 

Airing down and slow, steady progress is key. As soon as you feel your tires spin, let off. I was told once that if you can move a inch, your not stuck. Go back and forth while packing the snow in. There are times where the skinny pedal will be needed as well. Just comes with experience I guess. Your rigs looks more than capable. Old pictures of my FJC snow wheeling...

 

$59

Automatic Tire Deflators
$11

$28 VIAIR 00032 Air Down Gauge, Black

Airdown gauge
$21.95


Just FYI, you can still drive on the road w/ 15 psi in your tires w/o any tire damage, obviously don't drive like 100 miles like that, but 10-20 miles to the nearest service station is fine.

 

how do the tire deflators work exactly? do you just screw them on and let them go?

 

also one of those small Slime air compressors that plugs into the cigarette lighter is a must have

 

More than capable rig. What i have learned in my off road adventures is like he said slow and steady. And also when i have weight in the back of my truck 200lbs. Or more it seems to help tremendously.

 

Those actually suck really bad with regard to price vs value. They're worse than the Harbor Freight ones. In fact, they're so bad that Slime doesn't even publish a CFM Rating for them, which is a standard metric used to compare compressors w/ one another.

 

Really? The guy who told me to get it works for a racing team. Of course, he did say it was a gift.

I got mine on sale at Lowes or something and its great. Used it to pump up dirt bike tires, quad tires, truck tires, and even Bobcat and even the tires on a John Deere 2240 tractor. No complaints what so ever. Maybe I just got lucky and got a really good one.

 

Without derailing the thread into "what's a good compressor and what's not,"

a fair rule of thumb is that for it to draw enough current to be useful, the compressor needs to have a cord with "jumper cable" style clamps that clamp directly onto the battery terminal, rather than plugging into the cigarette lighter port.

 

Thanks all. Good stuff.

 

I have a 1 gallon air compresser that plugs into the bed and it fills the tires pretty quick. On board air is on my list though.