Winter Mountain Driving Advice Needed

in other words just stay the hell out of there if at all possible in winter, or watch the forecast very carefully. The rock dings on the hood and fenders of my truck are reason enough. Man that pisses me off getting sprayed by gravel by somebody speeding by.

 

@Big Road Skateboard , these aren't the good heavy Triggs chains, but I pulled out a bit so you can see them.

 

Thank you Sir. Cams on both sides it looks?

 

Not exactly legal on pavement but I loved these bad boys more than I love some family members.

 

Yes sir.

If you get some, I find it easiest to hook the center rail first!

 

Yep. I made a few phone calls and found two sets at home. I think they'll be happy to get rid of em. Very few trucks down there carry any chains.

I imagine they've set on a dusty shelf for some time.

I'll be home this weekend so I'll give em a practice run.

 

The fact the jake will tend to lock one corner first is actually a very useful early warning system that the available traction has changed. I run the Colorado mountains year round, and use the jake year round. A slip tells you to slow and reduce the traction requirements needed to hold you back. If traction is really variable, I'll have the diff lock in just to reduce to odds of the Jake causing a slip. You'll lose a bit of stability if it starts to slide 2 corners of the drives, but it's not anywhere near an unrecoverable problem.

Quite frankly, anyone who's freaked out by a minor slip probably doesn't belong in the mountains, anyways. Sure, it will get the adrenaline up for a second, but it's a manageable problem, provided you're not already going too fast. Another reason I'm a proponent of Jake only descent speed. Jake slips, you can use your cool brakes to instantly increase the number of tires handling the descent load from 8 to 18 and slow things up a bit.

@NOAH2K , search threads for winter and my username, I don't think I've done a mountain specific thread, but I've got several that go quite in depth on understanding traction. As the title of one says, I'm not about the platitudes, I'm about knowing what's happening with traction and what to do about it. They're definitely not targeted at the fair weather , find a parking spot crowd.

Been a few years, I should probably make a fresh one.

 

If I don't feel good about it, I don't do it.
That is the reason I drive for myself. I can safely drive in snow, but I don't trust other drivers, that is the reason I avoid going north east of USA in winter time.
I don't think there is any amount of money can pay for driving in icy roads, specially if you don't have the experience.

 

This is where I think many lose control. Something goes haywire, breaks traction, starts to jack knife, and folks don't how to respond.

So they either do nothing, or hit the brakes. A driver needs confidence in winter conditions.

A locked thread with the right advice would be good. In the open forum lots of bad advice gets tossed around. Maybe too many episodes of Ice Road Truckers.

 

Frankly, dropping the throttle is almost as common a response, which is as bad as hitting the brakes. It seems no one grasps that neutral throttle is what you want when you need to minimize traction demands, dropping the throttle just reverses the direction of the tire slippage from overspeed to underspeed!