Caught in a snow storm

[hhendrix]

My worst nightmare. We are driving to Alaska and back with friends and their Bambi. We are following them with our 27' Flying Cloud. We had camped at Toad Lake in the Yukon. We had just beat a storm on the way there but it caught up with us the next day near Muncho Lake in YT. My friend's Bambi started to fishtail, but he was able to bring it under control. I think his sphincter was doing Kegel exercises for the next two hours as we could only maintain about 10-15 mph.

[masseyfarm]

You are still in BC.

58.847616,-125.231322 - Google Maps

Stop at Laird Hot Springs and go for a swim while it is snowing.
58.847616,-125.231322 - Google Maps

You have a few miles to go yet!


Dave

Originally Posted by hhendrix

My worst nightmare. We are driving to Alaska and back with friends and their Bambi. We are following them with our 27' Flying Cloud. We had camped at Toad Lake in the Yukon. We had just beat a storm on the way there but it caught up with us the next day near Muncho Lake in YT. My friend's Bambi started to fishtail, but he was able to bring it under control. I think his sphincter was doing Kegel exercises for the next two hours as we could only maintain about 10-15 mph.

[wahoonc]

When conditions deteriorate like that I try to find somewhere to pull over and ride it out, my personal preference. In all my years of towing campers I have had to do it only twice. One of the reasons I make sure I have a small generator on board too.

Aaron

[hhendrix]

masseyfarm is correct. We were in BC not yet in YT.

[Airslide]

Wow.. Thanks for sharing the pictures. Those are rough conditions and even at 10 -15 miles an hour it would be easy to lose your way and set a wheel down in a ditch. I agree on waiting that stuff out until it passes. Be careful and take us along on your journey with more pics.


Vinnie

[SeattleMum]

It makes for a fabulous picture though

[AirsDream]

Not pretty. Only time I have had my Airstream try to "pass me" was during a big snowstorm (in Kentucky, of all places!). Lots of pucker factor indeed.

Emjoy the drive when it melts. I'm doing the same trip in two weeks ... I hope that by then most of the snow will be over!

[hhendrix]

Really no place to go but forward. When we left Toad River, the roads were clear and the storm was behind us. Once we got into the pass, the storm hit us and there was no place to turn around. Only option was to get down in elevation and then the roads cleared again. As I write this, we are in Homer AK. The weather has been pretty good to us. Great thing about coming a little early is the lack of crowds in the parks and on the roads. Downside is some lakes are still frozen and many places are just starting to open.

[Gene]

If you made it to Homer from Toad Lake in one day, you've set some sort of record. As I recall Toad Lake had very high gas prices, the most we saw on that trip.

We left in late May 2 years ago and ran into snow south of Calgary. Most of it was too wet to stick to the roads, but it was unnerving. Snowed again during the night in Calgary, but melted fast the next day. Didn't run into any more snow on that trip, but lots of rain and cool temps.

The best boat trip from Homer was the one to Halibut Cove (or something like that) on a small boat (can't remember the name of that either). We left in the morning, had a good lunch at a restaurant in Halibut Cove. An unusual little community across the bay from Homer.

Gene

[Mike Leary]

Yikes! We've stumbled into a few of those situations, as well. The only pre-planning we ever do for those "events", is to have plenty of fuel, propane, food and good wine. We'll just pull over, if we can. Nice pics, bet you were on the edge of your seat!

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, not on our Alaska trip, but in northern California into Oregon and in South Dakota we did a lot of traveling in snow and on ice. We just kept going and had no problems. I see, at least you have four wheel drive. Did you bring tire chains and use them? I didn't have chains either and two wheel drive. Tell us more about your trip and post pictures. Your trip, to Alaska, started about two months earlier than ours. We left home on July 1st, 2011.

[baylito99]

AirsDream, might see you on the road. I am leaving on or about the same time. You going through the UP ?

[hhendrix]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Hi, not on our Alaska trip, but in northern California into Oregon and in South Dakota we did a lot of traveling in snow and on ice. We just kept going and had no problems. I see, at least you have four wheel drive. Did you bring tire chains and use them? I didn't have chains either and two wheel drive. Tell us more about your trip and post pictures. Your trip, to Alaska, started about two months earlier than ours. We left home on July 1st, 2011.

I'm a little confused about the tire chains. Are you talking about tires chains for the AS? I thought you couldn't put tire chains on a AS.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by hhendrix

I'm a little confused about the tire chains. Are you talking about tires chains for the AS? I thought you couldn't put tire chains on a AS.

Hi, I was mostly talking about tire chains for my Lincoln. [two wheel drive]

[hhendrix]

The four wheel drive worked fine. The 2011 F250 was steady as a rock and has been wonderful this whole trip. A few days ago I looked at my friend's hitch and notice it looked it had been changed. Apparently, he had a couple of inches cut off the bottom and when it was returned, the bolts were in different places lowering the front of the trailer. It probably compromised the WD bars and lessened the weight on the Bambi's single axle. I think that may have contributed to the fishtail. We have since readjusted the hitch.
I also feel the weight and the advantage of two axles on my 27' FB helped maintain stability. I never felt anything unusual but it was still scary. I remember I had a F350 with a Lance cabover camper on it and it maxed out it's total weight. I believe weight gives you an advantage (as long as you don't abuse it) in the snow as I seldom had to switch to FWD with that combination.
In over 30 years of owning a FWD truck, and only had to put chains on both axles of the truck when caught in a snow storm many, many years ago in the CA Donner Summit area. These days they just close the road.

[oh2bcarefree]

Wow - how beautiful - just awesome views. Looks like the weather is great now. I'm glad you both made it through the rough weather just fine.

Thanks for sharing,

Tina