This might be dumb....

[katie]

I live in California...in what is known as "the valley." Also known as "yuck." So you guys will have to forgive my ignorance...snow isn't something we ever get. We barely get a good frost most of the time! I'm guessing a snowcat is like a personal snow plow?? You guys get so much snow you have your own snowplow?? Man...I envy that. I hate hot weather and I hate living in this valley. My brother used to drive snowplow for the state of Nevada and he loved it. He passed away last year...and when he became too sick to work he told me that one of the hardest things was giving up his snowplow job. When the first snow came he was sitting inside in his wheelchair looking out the window. Naturally everytime I see or hear about snowplows, I think of him. I've been sitting here looking at the pictures and reading the stories you guys posted....they're pretty awesome! When I'm more confident you won't laugh at me, I'll share my story of being dumb enough to take off to Nv in the middle of a blizzard...without snowchains. It ranks right up there as one of the stupidest things I've ever done! Thank Gawd there was a snowplow driver out that night. Some people are smart enough to stay off highway 88 in the winter...I wasn't!

 

[Melensdad]

Not so much a snow plow as a snow vehicle.

I live in Indiana, we don't get enough snow here to justify a snowcat, but my wife says I'm an idiot and I'm not one to argue with her about important things. We also have a ForumsForums member in Wales, UK who gets far less snow than I get, and she has a snowcat too. So for some of us here, they are a hobby. Others get serious use out of theirs. Some need them to get out to the roads, or reach real civilization. I've stopped counting, but here at the ForumsForums we probably have over two hundred members who own snowcats of some brand or another, with registered members from the northern islands of Japan to all parts of Europe, Iceland, Scandinavia and all over north America. Snowcat owners probably make up about 1/4 of the total registered members of the ForumsForums.

Here are some photos of mine, taken in my yard over this winter (the last one was taken in the summer).

 

[Snowcat Operations]

Welcome Katie. Sorry to hear about your brother. The winter here is a special time for me as well (I live in Nevada). Post whenever you feel comfortable! Stories are always cherished here.

 

[California]

This might be dumb....

... uh ...I'll let the snowcat regulars reply to that ...

I live in California...in what is known as "the valley."

Me too when I'm at home. The other half of the time at my 'ranch' (orchard) a couple of hours west near the Sonoma coast. Welcome to FF!

...snow isn't something we ever get. ... Some people are smart enough to stay off highway 88 in the winter...

I know what you mean. Snow is an alien environment for us flatlanders. We used to do 1-2 ski trips a year up to the I-80 summit and I'm quite aware I'm a novice in snow.

I love that Hwy 88 / Carson Pass region. Several winters we made snow trips with a friend to his family's cabin on Silver Lake. Drive up 88, then get out the toboggan to haul supplies, and their infant kids, the last mile. Great fun.

One year, up above the tree line a BMW didn't like my prudent pace and passed me as soon as he could. A half hour later we came upon him upside down in the ditch. Everyone unhurt but their skiis were all smashed. They had spun at an S-bend - went way up a bank and back down to the road spinning like a top, judging by the tire tracks in the snow. Then flopped over just as they got back to the pavement.

Then, and I'm pretty sure it was the same year, we got near Silver Lake and heard a tremendous boom. No problem, I told my family, CalTrans uses a howitzer here and on Echo Summit to knock down cornices far above the road that would become avalanches if not removed.

We arrived at Silver Lake and saw a sofa on the snow bank next to the road What the heck? Back home, we read the paper and realized the boom was the explosion of a vacant cabin that had filled with propane then disintegrated when the propane reached a pilot light.

Family history says my ancestors came over the summit into California through there, (Carson Pass, 8500 ft) after 4 months on the trail and surviving the 40 Mile desert in Nevada. Covered wagons etc.

That's strange and beautiful country. I love it.

 

[katie]

Not so much a snow plow as a snow vehicle.

Here are some photos of mine, taken in my yard over this winter (the last one was taken in the summer).

Ok....I see! Thanks for posting your pics.....especially the one by the car because it gave me an idea of how big these things are. All of you sound pretty passionate about your snowcats. I'm hoping that means soon there will be more stories and pics??? Looking forward to that!!! I enjoyed all the the ones I read earlier....actually I've enjoyed the entire forum! This place is great. Thanks for replying!!
Katie

 

[katie]

Welcome Katie. Sorry to hear about your brother. The winter here is a special time for me as well (I live in Nevada). Post whenever you feel comfortable! Stories are always cherished here.

Thank you....I miss my brother terribly. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him. I appreciate the kind words.
So you're in Nv too, huh?? My brother loved it there also. He lived in Carson City. The night I drove up in a blizzard, he didn't know I was coming. I went with his son and we decided to surprise him. Yep....he was surprised alright. Took us almost 10 hours to get there. When we finally made it (after almost sliding off the side of the road, down to the the river.....several times!!) my brother asked where we had to chain up. When I told him we never did he said "I can't believe there wasn't chains required." I said "oh...yeah, there was signs that said they were required, we didn't have any chains, didn't know how to put them on even if we did have them and it didn't matter because there wasn't anyplace on 88 even selling them. Matter of fact there was no one on 88 except for us and a snowplow drivr. I think maybe it was closed?" My brother said "and did all that seem normal to you? Never occurred to you to take Highway 50? MY GOD WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?" I told him I was only expecting a few flurries. And there was flurries...on top of flurries and more on top of them untill the only thing we could see was white....just a few inches from our faces. The nephew that was with me doesn't drink...but that night when we got to Carson, he walked over to Carson Station and slammed down several shots! That was the same trip where one night I was driving from one brothers house to the others (two of my brothers lived there...one still does) and as I was cruising along I came face to face with a huge deer. He was walking down the middle of the road, right in the middle of town. I stopped and watched him for a long time. That's something else we don't see here in "the valley." We do have cows, though!! It's just not the same.
But wow.....I've never seen it snow like it did during our drive up there. I had landmarks picked out...rest stop here.....store there. But they all disappeared. Just big ol piles of snow where they used to be. What a trip that was!!!

 

[katie]

Quote:
Originally Posted by katie
This might be dumb....

... uh ...I'll let the snowcat regulars reply to that ...
Ha! You're a funny one!!

I live in California...in what is known as "the valley."

Me too when I'm at home. The other half of the time at my 'ranch' (orchard) a couple of hours west near the Sonoma coast. Welcome to FF!
Am I reading that right? You live part time here in the valley? Or did I musunderstand? If you are in the valley has it been as hot where you are as it is here? And yes....that drive on 88 is beautiful. WHen my brother got sick, it was in summer and I made several trips for the next few months. I saw it turn to Fall,then of course Winter. I thought the fall colors were beautiful.And I always stopped at Cooks station for lunch. Small world, huh??

 

[Snowcat Operations]

Katie,
My brother and I along with my dog drove from Reno To Ely NV. Normally this is a 4 1/2 hr trip. Christmas eve a few years back I had to drive home since I was due back to work the next day. I left out of Reno NV on I 80 then drop on over to 50 out of Fallon. From that point on things started to get interesting! White outs almost all the way from there to ELY 13 hours or so later we finally arrive at my house. We were in my Jeep Grand Cherokee with selectable lockers front and back. Two 5 gallon cans of fuel and my typical vehicle winter survival kit. I get into work the next morning and found out that the roads had been closed but no one bothered to actually anounce it or post signs. I could have stayed in Reno with my family at our Christmas reunion. My brother went with me since we knew conditions were going to be somewhat bad but to be honost I dont believe ANYBODY suspected what actually came! OH well its a great story we tell every Christmas! It was so bad not even snowplows were out except in the small towns along the trip. In fact my brother and I were getting worried that we might get high centered. But the snow was powder and just came up half way up the radiator at points. The raod markers were just visable. On some parts I had to slow down to about 2 to 3 MPH since we couldnt see the road marker signs till my headlights illuminated the reflector. The wind was blowing the powder around so much we had zero visability for a most of the trip. I had to place some card board in to keep it from filling my engine compartment. The coldest temps we saw that night was -31 degrees F..

 

[Melensdad]

Ok....I see! Thanks for posting your pics.....especially the one by the car because it gave me an idea of how big these things are.

Katie, my Aktiv Snow Trac is one of the smaller snowcats. It is only 6'2" wide, about 12'4" long and it is just over 6' tall. So mine is roughly the size of a compact car and easily fits into a standard garage or parking space. At just over 6' tall, it looks bigger than it really is.

Most snowcats are somewhat wider than mine, it is pretty typical to find snowcats that are about 8' wide, the length of a snowcat will range from about 12' up to about 20'. So again, thinking in terms of common vehicles, a larger snowcat will be roughly the same length as a Chevy "Suburban" SUV or Hummer "H2" but the typical snowcat will be slightly wider than even a large "SUV"

There are some snowcats that are more specialized than most of us here at the ForumsForums play with. They can be 12' wide and are usually used by professional snow groomers at ski resorts. The vast majority of us folks here on the ForumsForums who own our own snowcat own one that is from the 1960's through early 1990's. Those are actually affordable machines and many are very dependable, easy to operate, and simple to maintain. A brand new snowcat can easily cost $75,000 for a very basic model and specialized units can run around $400,000+

My snowcat is a 1972 model. It has a steering wheel, clutch pedal, brake pedal and accelerator pedal and operates very much like a standard transmission car. . . but much slower! These things have top speeds of 15 to 25 miles per hour (depending on model) but they will climb up the side of a mountain, cross shallow streams, drive over peat bogs without sinking, and manange the worst snow conditions.

Here are 2 pictures of the interior of my Snow Trac (before I fixed it up) and the final picture shows it parked in my workshop on top of a standard sized car lift. You can see it easily fits in the garage (there is plenty of room to spare too).

 

[thcri]

I'll share my story of being dumb enough to take off to Nv in the middle of a blizzard...without snowchains. It ranks right up there as one of the stupidest things I've ever done! Thank Gawd there was a snowplow driver out that night. Some people are smart enough to stay off highway 88 in the winter...I wasn't!

Katie,

There isn't one person here of FF that has NOT done something stupid in their lives. We all have and hopefully we learn from them. Heck many a snow storms have I gone out when I should have stayed home. In fact I thought there use to be a thread here of all the dumb things each one has done. Heck if I was you I would just feel more like the rest of us here.




murph


Edit Here: I take that back, there was one guy that didn't make any mistakes here on FF but he doesn't come around any more!!!!

 

[katie]

Katie,
My brother and I along with my dog drove from Reno To Ely NV. Normally this is a 4 1/2 hr trip. Christmas eve a few years back I had to drive home since I was due back to work the next day. I left out of Reno NV on I 80 then drop on over to 50 out of Fallon. From that point on things started to get interesting! White outs almost all the way from there to ELY 13 hours or so later we finally arrive at my house. We were in my Jeep Grand Cherokee with selectable lockers front and back. Two 5 gallon cans of fuel and my typical vehicle winter survival kit. I get into work the next morning and found out that the roads had been closed but no one bothered to actually anounce it or post signs. I could have stayed in Reno with my family at our Christmas reunion. My brother went with me since we knew conditions were going to be somewhat bad but to be honost I dont believe ANYBODY suspected what actually came! OH well its a great story we tell every Christmas! It was so bad not even snowplows were out except in the small towns along the trip. In fact my brother and I were getting worried that we might get high centered. But the snow was powder and just came up half way up the radiator at points. The raod markers were just visable. On some parts I had to slow down to about 2 to 3 MPH since we couldnt see the road marker signs till my headlights illuminated the reflector. The wind was blowing the powder around so much we had zero visability for a most of the trip. I had to place some card board in to keep it from filling my engine compartment. The coldest temps we saw that night was -31 degrees F..

Wow....-31 degrees! Now THAT is cold!
Those whiteouts scared me to death. My nephew and I would turn the defroster on high, stick our heads out the window and all that stuff. Of course nothing worked but we were desperate. Growing up my parents and I spent alot of time in Lake Tahoe and Reno so those were the only times I've really been around snow. And my dad tried to make sure we made our trips when the roads were open and all the snow was already on the ground....not swirling around our car! There were times we had to chain up and drive through the snow but never anything like what my nephew and I went through. The last time it snowed here was in 1960. We're about 18 miles from Modesto. I'm sure you guys know where that is after the scott peterson case. My dad walked out to go to work and had the shock of his life. My brothers got to build a snowman but I'm sure he melted by the afternoon.
By any chance, do you remember when you made your trip from Reno to Ely?? My adventure was the weekend of the 4th and 5th of December 2005. I remember walking over to Carson Station to get lunch for my brother and I hit a patch of ice. I tried so hard NOT to fall.....flailing arms, little half spins and maybe even a double axel. But I hit that ice with hard THUD. And trying to get up was worse that the fall! My brother lived across the street and saw the whole thing through his window. When I got home the only thing he said was "well, I'm glad you didn't have the food yet. That would have been a shame." Phhhhhhhhht!
Thanks for sharing your story...I enjoyed it!

 

[katie]

Here are 2 pictures of the interior of my Snow Trac (before I fixed it up) and the final picture shows it parked in my workshop on top of a standard sized car lift. You can see it easily fits in the garage (there is plenty of room to spare too).

[Thanks for posting your pics. I clicked on them to see the large view but was wondering if on the right...is that a storage compartment or a place for passengers??? Remember I warned you guys I'm pretty dumb about this stuff!
Anyone know who...in this forum...gets the most snow?? Would it be way up North? Or are there parts of the US that get just as much? Or does it depend on what kind of winter we're having? Remember the movie "the shining?" Is that what some of you guys have to deal with?? I remember reading in the paper (can't remember where this was) that people's roofs were falling in from the weight of the snow. That kinda screws up my mental picture of a big cozy fire, hot chocolate and watching the snow fall through a big window! But that cozy image is how I picture what living where it snows is like. I'm probably sounder dumber and more naive by the minute!

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Hi Katie.....first, welcome to the club! As for snow amounts, it varies. I'm way up here in Northern Ontario, Canada and on an average winter, we get somewhere around 4 feet of snow. Last year was an exception. Our winter snow season usually starts in Mid Novemeber and lasts until late march. I'm sure some other ares get more snow than that but it depends on the type of terrain you're in I guess. Some of the mountaineous areas out west I hear get allot more snow than we do.

 

[srexecmark]

Welcome Katie. I live in the Washington Cascades. I'm at 3500' and normally get around 12 feet. Last year we had 12 feet on the ground at the end of Feb. We also had tons of rain last year. If that had been all snow we would have had over 20'. I have to use the snowcat to get to my house since I am 7 miles from the nearest plowed road.

I was raised in the "Valley" in Davis and the family has a cabin near Lake Tahoe where we had to use a snowmobile to get in until a bunch of folks build very expensive homes by ours and just had to get their BMW's in, so the plow the road from time to time making it impossible to know how I was going to get in or out. I don't miss California and the heat.

Mark

 

[California]

Am I reading that right? You live part time here in the valley?... has it been as hot where you are as it is here?

Yup. Third generation.

Hot here too. We took the kids (two finally-adult daughters) and some guests to the State Fair today and it was 99 degrees, slightly cooler than recently. I'm getting old, I guess - After the first 6 hours walking around in the heat, noise, chaos I was about ready for heat stroke. Chaos = literally 100,000 people. But these are fascinating people - I love it. We were there from 11 am till 11 pm and saw maybe a tenth of the whole thing.

I'm glad to see another Californian joining here. I chose this screen name on a similar board when my real name was taken and I noticed the far west was badly underrepresented.

I sure know where Modesto is. We drove there frequently to visit my wife's relatives. I'm about an hour+ north.

Anyone know who...in this forum...gets the most snow?? I'm probably sounding ... more naive by the minute!

Hey, lighten up on yourself. What makes a forum interesting is diversity, so each of us can learn something we never heard of. It would be boring if everyone thought the same and had had all the same experiences!

FWIW - I read somewhere that South Lake Tahoe has the highest annual snowfall, or maybe that was snowpack, of any Post Office in the nation. In other words, highest for a populated area. Does anyone have more precise info on this? (maybe starting another thread would be a better place for that topic).

 

[srexecmark]

I think Mt. Baker (Sister to Mt. Rainier) holds the record snowfall in the continental US at somewhere around 936" in one season. That is a bunch of snow!

 

[Bobcat]

<snip>
FWIW - I read somewhere that South Lake Tahoe has the highest annual snowfall, or maybe that was snowpack, of any Post Office in the nation. In other words, highest for a populated area. Does anyone have more precise info on this? (maybe starting another thread would be a better place for that topic).

I can definitely say that an area of Kirkwood (near Lake Tahoe) had over 14ft last winter. We had a solar panel mounted to a 10ft pole and the panel was buried early in the season. We added another 5ft section and a month later that was buried! Here is a picture of what it looked like after the snow melted. The wooden frame in the middle is at about the 10ft level. I'll try to find a winter picture for comparison.

This site http://skiing.about.com/od/californiaskiresorts/p/kirkwoodmtn.htm says the Kirkwood ski resort gets 550" (over 45ft!) of snowfall a year.