Grampa's Jeep Snow Wheeling in Southern Idaho

Since I have had bad luck with the  NDT tires in the snow, I put some fat clown tires on and loaded the jeep on the trailer and drove to Southern Idaho where I met my cousin and his daughter for some snow wheelin'. Here's the rigs we had. My 48 CJ2A, his jacked up TJ on wide axles and even fatter tires and what sort of looks like an XJ, also with fat tires. 

You can kind of see the Jeeps on the trailers here.

When we got to the trail head (actually my other cousin's front yard) to unload ithe temperature was about 12 degrees. When I tried to start Grampa's jeep, the Rotella 15-40 in the crankcase was so thick that the starter would barely turn the engine over, but wouldn't start. So we pushed it off the trailer and hooked a strap on to the TJ for a pull start. 

In the meantime I had discovered that the steering wheel wouldn't turn. The Ross box was frozen up and wouldn't budge. Well we decided to try the pull start anyway, even though I had no steering. After about a half mile of pulling the thing I finally realized that I was still in low range and so the engine wasn't getting a fast enough spin to start. Made the difficult shift to high range with the cold 90 wt in the transfer case fighting back and got her to kick over. Didn't unhook the strap yet though because I still didn't have any steering, so the TJ just pulled me through the curves, dragging my front end around. There was packed snow on the road so it was not too traumatic a pull on the corners. 

Got back to the trucks and trailers and let her warm up a bit and finally the Ross box loosened up and I had some steerage. 

In the past, most of my snow wheeling has been in the spring, in deep snow (several feet) with a hard crust top. My NDTs would break through and leave me sitting on the frame with four tires spinning in the air. while my trail partner, on his big fat tires would stay on top and walk right along. That's why I put the fat clown tires on for this tip> I didn't think about how different the conditions are now compared to the conditions in the spring.

Right now in these really cold temperatures, there is up to  a foot of fresh powder snow that doesn't pack or set up very solid. It is like driving on dry sugar. My clown tires did better than my NDTs would have, but they still would spin very easily in this dry snow. 

I believe that I would have done way better this time, in these conditions, if I would have stayed with the NDTs and used the tire chains that I bought a few years ago to get some heavy metal on all four corners.  The snow was light enough that I could have gotten the chains down through it to the hard road surface and then push that powder along with the bumper. 

My cousins daughter, I think she's 15, did very well in the XJ, but after getting a long ways ahead of us, she got stopped and started to back down, got off the packed track a bit and in to the powder on the low side of the road. It's hard to tell from this picture, but it's really steep just off the road and this was a bit of a scary spot for her. 

We dug the snow out from under the tires to get down to the gravel, then ran a ratchet strap from the roll bar on the drivers side to a tree to put on some uphill tension so she wouldn't slip down the hill, into the trees and the long drop below. I then ran a strap back to Grampa's Jeep, and while I pulled down hill and the ratchet strap kept her from sliding off the edge, and the bare graven gave her some traction, we got her out without further incident. 

I'm working on a little video of some of the good and bad of my experience in the snow. In the meantime, here are a few glamour still shots.  Keep in mind that the temps were in the teens today. Sunny and no wind though, so it was not too bad.

When I was ranching we chained the pickups all the way around and loaded feed for the cows in the back.  It was WORK.  When the snow got really deep I would blade the road and feed ground with the D8 Cat.  Again WORK and Cold. I do like cows. It seams we had more snow and cold 30 years ago.  Have not had any 40* below weather in years.  State high way 450 has not been closed often in the past few years.  The ranch was a good place to raise kids.

Taking a couple of Jeeps up a road with deep snow would now be fun.  

Wheels and tires look better than the clown shoes you ran before  I like the steel wheels. 

What size and make are those tires?

Thanks for taking us on a cold ride from our couches

The other jeeps had fat tires with deeper cleats than these tires so they did a bit better, although I didn't feel ashamed or embarrassed. 

Flatfender Ben wrote: Wheels and tires look better than the clown shoes you ran before  I like the steel wheels.  What size and make are those tires?

Doug