Some hours later the sun is up. Things are bright but the light is diffuse and unfocused. It’s light without source or warmth. The wind’s fury has not abated, but rather increased. The sky is a swirling cacophony of ice crystals. Stare at it too long and you lose perspective. There is no depth or horizon.
Nothing living can be seen in any direction. Except snow laden and iced up trees. I’ve probably lost a few trees to this blizzard but they’re too far back in the woods to be visible.
Pondering the broken doorknob, I ask Mrs. Curmudgeon if she’d like to join me on a trip to town. She opines that only a madman would go out there today. Challenge accepted!
I dress like I’m going to run a trap line, give my diesel a huge amount of time to warm up, and bravely sally forth. I don’t technically need 4×4 to get out of the driveway but it’s not overkill. It’s the perfect amount of technology for conditions… on the driveway. On the dirt road beyond my land it gets much worse. I now I absolutely need 4×4. Unlike an SUV, I have a real 4×4. I switch into low range and give the transfer case plenty of time to engage.
Here’s something a lot of folks might not know, if your vehicle doesn’t have a low range, it’s more a grocery getter than heavy equipment… not that such a thing is bad. A good grocery getter is a great thing. But it’s not as tough as the advertisements would have you believe. In practical terms, most use of 4×4 low range in America is from jeepers having fun on a muddy trail; completely reasonable entertainment but not a practical thing. But for me, right now, low range is damn well appreciated.
The snow has drifted and it’s pretty deep. Some glorious patches of clear deeply frozen roadbed are scoured clear. These are interspersed with bumper deep drifts. Luckily, it’s so cold the snow is formless powder, dry as a bone, shifting and listless.
I methodically cross each drift in turn. Pause, assess the situation, aim carefully, think a minute, then punch the accelerator and cross the Rubicon without doubt or hesitation. This isn’t my first rodeo. The heavy truck blasts through admirably.
It’s fun! The cab heat is appreciated too. Compared to my house, the truck is toasty. I take off my fur hat and it’s a delicious luxury just to be “outdoors” without freezing.
Even though I’m having fun, I’m careful. A walk home in these conditions, even a very short one, isn’t tragic but it would be far too memorable for my tastes. Always be aware of the arena in which you play. This is God’s arena. It’s OK to have a little fun but never forget you’re meddling with dangerous forces. I’m just a smart monkey with an expensive vehicle. All that stands between me and a very hard day are the mechanics of a truck built by a company that needs a bailout every few decades and whatever traction the tires can muster.
Then again if I watch another second of TV, I’ll go mad.
Just as I need 4×4 to get down the road I need to spend a few hours out of the house!
After several dozen amusing and only moderately risky drift busts, I make it to the paved road. The paved road is clear. Not clear from plowing but scoured by the wind. It’s spotless almost at the molecular level.
All is not smooth sailing though. The wind is howling. Once again, my ridiculous, overpriced, high maintenance, over-engineered, behemoth earns its keep. It’s all well and good to joke about huge powerful trucks as “compensating for something”, but it’s a joke told by suburbanites who are not on this road, in these conditions, traveling as I am right now.
There’s not much traffic. A log truck here and there and that’s about it. The few personal vehicles out there are trucks like mine. Most of them sporting a snowplow such as I covet but cannot (or will not) afford.
The lack of vehicles isn’t due to the conditions on this road. It’s due to the heavy drifting on all the small feeder roads. For the next several miles, the traction is good and the visibility is decent. The crosswind is very strong but crosswind rarely bothers me. Duallies suck at traction but their squat wide stance makes them great against crosswinds. I sail through conditions that are beautiful and menacing, all while luxuriating in the dash heat; which far exceeds any heat in our firewood bereft house. I find myself humming. I’m warm, it’s peaceful to use a machine for what it was made. I don’t bother with the radio, it would just be shitty pop and shitter politics. Instead I watch the snow and listen to the engine’s counterpoint to the wind. I like to drive.
It’s almost too soon when I get to town. I liked that heated cab!
Stepping back into the maelstrom, the wind rips the truck door from my hands and I’m almost surprised it stays bolted on. Canted at an odd angle I waddle to the hardware store and buy a doorknob. Cheap at any price.
Then I trundle across town, pick the restaurant with the best heat and eat the longest breakfast possible. While braving the 50 paces back to my truck I covet Mrs. Curmudgeon’s vehicle’s remote start. This goes away when I’m back on the open road and the squat heavy truck shrugs off wind which is, if anything, even worse than before.
I love blizzard stories!
I aim to please.
I respectfully (slightly) disagree with low range in snow being a useful tool. Sort of. Oh, it gives you a mechanical advantage but 4th gear low isn’t really any different than 2nd gear high. With your low-revving diesel I can see the advantage as you have more gears to work with up to 40mph or so, and that’s not nothing. In my experience, the grocery-getter with a DOHC 8K-rpm-redline motor is doing the same thing, just in a different gear. The greatest requirement for busting snow is horsepower (torque x rpm) and momentum. Go too slow you get stuck and high-centered. Go too fast or back off the throttle and the back end wants to swap places with the front end. No, the key to snow is to have the engine making enough power that it doesn’t bog down and hit that drift with enough energy to bust through but not so much that you spin out. And another key point, never drive in the wheel tracks. Make your own. The thing that slows you is the bottom of the car dragging, which will happen if your tires are low in a track and your underside is scraping the middle of the ridge. Get your tires on the snow, the bottom of the car off the snow, you’ll go a lot farther.
To be honest, diff locks would be a greater tool than any high-low range on a transfer case.
Which brings about a question: when did we go from 2wd pickups and chains on the tires that made it to town through anything to AWD SUV’s with traction control and all sorts of electronic gizmo’s that still get stuck on a snowball? I’m not seeing the improvement of technology there.
As an aside, because I know you hate AMC Gremlins, do you remember the AMC Eagle line? Concord, Spirit and I think Gremlin bodies put on the same chassis, but they had a 4wd and later AWD mode. The key was the transfer case, which was basically a torque converter with a silicon lube that got more sticky as it heated up. Hence, rear wheels spinning, it transferred more to the front. They claimed that with 3 wheels spinning up to 90% of the power went to the one that had traction. I have no idea what happened to that idea as the AMC remnants were bought up but I can tell you that companies such as Honda, in spite of their engineering prowess and legendary reputation, will put 90% of their AWD power to the single tire that is spinning on a wet sneeze in the road.
You would think that the makers of AWD cars might have tested them in the snow and overcome this limitation. You would also be wrong.
Stay warm, brother. I’m right there with ya.
As much as I loathed the Gremlin, the Eagle seemed pretty cool. Almost ahead of its time. I even liked the looks. That said I wouldn’t have touched one with a ten foot pole until the whole company had a better reputation for quality; which it didn’t… ever.
Heck, I’m still fretting about the tail end of the suck. Somewhere there’s a chart that goes something like this:
Hell -> Gremlin -> AMC -> Eagle -> Jeep -> Chrysler -> BAILOUT #1 -> Fiat -> BAILOUT #2 -> Dodge -> Ram -> Death Wobble
The order and details vary but when my truck got Death Wobble (!) I heard the ghost of a Gremlin laughing at me. The only reason I own a Dodge is because I wanted a Cummings engine (which is awesome). Inexplicably, some idiot put those excellent engines in Dodges instead of a Ford or Chevy! Tragic. It’s a great engine shoehorned into a hunk of Detroit’s protectionist mediocrity. (I say protectionist because some years back I was saving up for the diesel Mahindra truck that never made it past the Obama era EPA. That’s why I finally relented and got a used American truck.)
I also agree a diff lock would be best but I don’t have one. I’ve got decent clearance so on my road following wheel ruts is fine… assuming you don’t follow them into a ditch.
As for AWD, it’s excellent for 90% of conditions but sucks if you exceed its design. Mrs. Curmudgeon high centered an AWD Honda this winter and I had the devil of a time getting it out. With either front OR rear wheel drive you can isolate the problem and dig around the correct tire. With AWD it was a puzzle. Of course, I got it figured eventually. At least the ground is frozen super hard… once a tire gets there it’s like pavement. Much easier than mud.
You stay warm too.
+1
Having spent several winters in Iceland, courtesy of the US Navy, I can relate to the luxurious feeling of sitting in the warm cab of a truck after trudging through deep snow. Driving in blowing, powder dry snow is no joke. It can turn into a whiteout in a heartbeat and you have no idea how long it will last. I trust that you, being the well prepared skeptic that you are, have some emergency supplies in the truck.
Have no fear. When I’m out and about in my truck I have enough gear to restart civilization from wherever I park. However, I’m still taking it easy, got a cold and such… so it’s better to look out from the heated cab than hike home in the very warm and useful boots/coat I always bring.
Great story telling AC. Reminded me of Wyoming. Reminds me why I live closer to the opposite border now. Cold weather turns me into Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
Jack Nicholson in the Shining didn’t have a running truck and the internet. That’s what’s saving me. I really ought to fire up the Dodge and drive about 2 days south. I could use a day of t-shirt weather and maybe an afternoon fishing.
Here is how you can tell if you have driven far enough south in winter:
1) strap a snow shovel to the front of the truck.
2) drive south.
3) when somebody asks you what it is, you have arrived at your destination.
– Max
Yeah. I had a plan to do something like that in mid January and it fell through. Now I’m going nuts. I can’t wait for spring.
I ask again, what is this “snow” of which you keep speaking? If it’s anything like the “snow” in Miami and other points south, well, all the locals down there seem to RAVE about it. But then they usually put it on a glass-topped table, shuffle it around with a razor blade, and then inhale it through a rolled-up $100 bill…
But then it is cold even down here right now. Hell, it’s only supposed to get up to 78 tomorrow!
}:-]
You’re killin’ me!
🙂
Honda does make the Pilot with a rear differential lock for low speeds. It only engages if you are in first gear and going less than 18 MPH. I haven’t had to test it yet…
Relax.
Listen to some music.
Ha ha ha. Feuerschwanz – Blöde Frage, Saufgelage!
I have no idea what the lyrics mean but I have a theory. I think the cast from the Canadian show Letterkenny was attacked by Dr. Who’s 1980’s special effects team and transmuted into a German rock band.
My dear Captain, what can it be today?
The night is still young, so bright the moonshine
Come on, let’s go on the slopes, we’ll go hunting again!
Because at home ‘at the castle, it is stuffy and bleak and bland
Man, Hodi, my boy, I used to be like you
Had bumblebees in the butt, always pressed the shoe
But today I’m old, but happy, so do it like me!
First a nap – before that I do nothing
What are we waiting for tonight?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Did not we do that yesterday?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
All right, young friend, give me one!
And just tell me one thing: what can it be today?
There you are, dude, come on, was that so hard?
Come on, let’s write history, the night we lay down!
What are we waiting for tonight?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Did not we do that yesterday?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Spent the whole night just dancing?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Yes, what are we looking for tonight?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Everyone does their thing, that’s the way it is
The one profit is the other torment –
Today, just like Anno Dazumal
What are we waiting for tonight?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Did not we do that yesterday?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Spent the whole night just dancing?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Yes, what are we looking for tonight?
Stupid question, binge drinking!
Get some!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-A5clw2N3E&t=0s&index=5&list=PL412487799F4336D8
Come, we are going with the Horde, with our heroes
We storm wildly, like every year
Our names are legends that you carry on forever
Let’s dance, let’s burn – until the earth shakes
In the flickering glow of fire, like the warriors after the battle
In powerful masonry is sung, laughed
Such an epic achievement, everyone goes to their heads
Make the horn our Savior, the Mead to our God!
The horns up!
No wall of this world that still holds us
The horns up!
The gods chose us, so a horn raises
The horns up!
Yes, we are radical, it sounds banal
but a full horn is my holy grail
There on the green island, we have probably learned one thing:
With us, lust for life is full of great jugs
And we scream out loud that everyone understands us:
The grain is my church, the Guinness my prayer!
the Guinness my prayer
the Guinness my prayer
The horns up!
No wall of this world that still holds us
The horns up!
The gods chose us, so a horn raises
The horns up!
Yes, we are radical, it sounds banal
but a full horn is my holy grail
And should I fall, no tears will cry around me
Tell my friends, I bravely feasted to the end
Leave me behind, on my shield
I am born again
but never again without my horn
The horns up!
No wall of this world that still holds us
The horns up!
The gods chose us, so a horn raises
The horns up!
Yes, we are radical, it sounds banal
but a full horn is my holy grail
Unrelated, but a happy example of an operator who Grokks their machine… (also, firewood)