Do you Chain up, or pull over and wait?

The key in bad visibility is staying on the rumble strip. And just drive.

 

I did that last winter for the better part of 160 miles from Cheyenne to Rawlins, it was near whiteout conditions late at night... But I kept on chugging along to get into rawlins because I knew they would shut the road down over Elk Mountain before morning... Sure enough when I got up the next day that stretch was closed and remained closed until the next day... By that time I had delivered my load and was enjoying a beer at home.

 

Only had to do that once, sure was hard to drive because of the shaking, but got to the warehouse which closed because the roof did not hold the snow, had to crawl to put them on because standing was out. No choice sometimes because weather changes fast. Then when leaving that warehouse it was basically gone.

 

#### that sucks!

 

Lots of variables, I wouldn't stick to one ideology.

Parleys Canyon in UT gets alot of brief snow storms. They want you to chain up and often times all you find is a slushy road.... I think it could be better/faster to just wait that out if it isn't snowing in the valley.

If it's been snowing hard for a while and you come up on a mountain pass requiring chains then it's likely you won't find a place to park if you choose not to chain. People try to park in the chain up area and get plowed in when the plow comes by. Just chain up to get over the pass and continue on, not a big deal...

I think you have to really try hard to mess up and go into the ditch with chain on. Far far easier to go into the ditch before you get to the chain up points on a trip. I think it's more dangerous on the flat ground during winter conditions than it is chaining up and going over a pass.

I was heading west out of Denver and it started to snow hard. My drives were starting to spin but it was ok as long as I could keep decent momentum. Traffic starts to slow down in front of me, so I ease back and slow down to keep plenty of room and not have to stop. Every one starts going around and jumping in front of me filling up the space....All I could do is hit the shoulder and stop because I knew I wouldn't be able to get going again without chains on. I didn't really "need" chains to go over that pass, I got screwed by 4-wheelers. Now, chaining up on the shoulder sucks, I was worried about the rubberneckers slowing down and causing problems. As I was chaining A car coming the other direction flipped over upside down in the median right across from me. There was too much traffic for me to cross the road and see if they were ok, and I noticed people stopping that were going the other direction. Good, I can throw chains and get out of here before something stupid happens.

I would advise to chain up a few times, just so you can get the hang of it. It will really help when you need it.

 

How many people that say they never chain run west of the Rockies in the winter? How many go into CA?

I-80 into CA is where I've chained up the most. Alot of people don't even go there... .... ... Not that it is a bad thing .

 

Yeah. If you rarely or never run across Donner or Snoqualamie or Siskiyou or Vail or Oregon I-84 or don’t do oilfield work, it’s pretty easy to say “I never chain”

 

I enjoy a little bit of excerisize. I like chaining up and running em over donner as every year. Nothing new. If you look forward to it it’ll be just another day.

 

The only place I’ve chained up is in i70 in Colorado. But wtf is the point of chaining up when in the next 2 miles, you will see a sign that says chain down. Then you will repeat the process of chaining up and chaining down like 6 times before you get off that mountain. Gotta protect that 365 days 24/7 construction I guess.

 

That’s a bit of a stretch. Only during peaks of major winter storms across Nevada or western Montana or Oregon can one be expected to chain 3 or 4+ times in a single conveyance. Usually, 2 chainings is on the maximum side. I’ll spend 80 minutes to chain twice in a day to potentially save 48 hours of lost time to missed appointments.