Towing a 5.0 in snow and ICE.

[advenas]

My first year on the road I left Bend OR after visiting my brother for Thanksgiving. The roads out of his sub-division were packed snow & ice. I was going like five miles an hour sliding the whole way. Then on that same trip I hit snow heading to Fallon NV. I slowed to 25mph on the highway until I could get to town and park in an RV spot. It was white knuckles the entire way. Coming back home on that trip I pulled off the highway to a chain-up area coming out of Winnemucca NV to get out of the way of a tractor trailer rig tailgating me. It was late March and that area gets foggy. Little did I know that the road was fine but the chain-up area was one big sheet of black ice. I remember thinking I'll just swing over here and slow down so he can go past, stop, walk the dog, etc. All I heard at 60mph was the sound of tires sliding on ice. That sickening sound of no grip, no control and too much speed. I got very lucky. Nobody else was parked in the chain-up area. The truck and trailer braked straight but slid probably 150ft or more and kept going straight off the end of the chain-up area. No rocks, curb or drainage...just sand and right between two poles with signs saying "pavement stops". I let everything slow down to about 5-10mph then punched it so I wouldn't get stuck in the sand and drove up to the highway. Amazingly I was calm through the whole thing. Truck and trailer were fine. Towing in snow and ice? No thanks. I've had my fill.

[CarolynStride]

Originally Posted by Little Richie

As an aside, I have a 4 x 2 because I don’t find a 4 x 4 very useful given my driving patterns. I don’t go charging over snow drifts; I don’t take it off road; I don’t tow a boat; etc. I can lock the rear wheels, which Seems to work in snow -At least well enough to get into motel parking lot.

I ordered a 2wd with locking diff for my 5.0. I learned to drive in snow and don’t need 4wd for the few times I will be on us paved roads.
Saved money, gave me another 300 lbs payload, and one less thing to service.
Slow and steady or staying put with hot chocolate for me.

[NoSOD]

I would not like to be in that situation, maybe hand the keys to your wife?!

I've had two bad experiences with hills in icy conditions. Years ago I was driving my buddy's Tacoma, towing a flatbed trailer with his quad on it. We headed up a steep forestry road, and slowly went from going forward to stopping to sliding backwards with no control of the situation at all. Luckily we went into the ditch on the right instead of off the side of the mountain on the left.

Just before this Christmas, I took my 2010 Ford F150 4x4 off to cut down a Christmas tree. This was on the last day you could access the area, and one of those days you get in Calgary when it suddenly warms up from really cold and snowy to just above freezing. I headed up a hill I'd been up many times before, in 4 high, got about 100yd up, and again slowly lost forward momentum, stopped going forward altogether, then started the backwards slide, with absolutely no say in where the truck ended up. I was in drive with my foot firmly on the brake. Luckily I slid to a stop on the opposite side of the road, still facing uphill. From there I watched a couple of SUV's follow the same route up the hill, at first they seemed to be having less trouble that I did, but when they got to a steeper part, they both gradually lost forward momentum, then started sliding backwards, and rotating at the same time, very slowly, as if they were dancing. By some miracle they didn't collide, but they were heading towards me, so being afraid I'd get hit, I put my truck in reverse and backed down. It turns out that the antilock brake system worked going backwards in reverse, but not going backwards in drive! I had enough control to steer around the cluster of families watching from the bottom of the hill.

I carry chains, but have never used them, and while I was tempted to put them on and conquer that hill, I let discretion be the better part of valour, and after walking around a bit to calm down, drove off to a much easier spot to get the tree.

I was hoping to head down south from Calgary at the beginning of March (can't now due to covid situation travel advisory), but there is a good chance we'll still be snowed in at the time, so I'm pretty worried about the first part of that trip, might just not do it.