I've been looking forward to driving the jeep in snow all summer and on Saturday I got a chance to do it! While bird hunting for the weekend at the deer camp, it started to snow on Saturday afternoon. I decided it may be considerably snowier in the higher elevations, which would be Mt. Arvon, the highest pt. in MI, only a fifteen min. drive or so taking your time. My friend and I hopped in the jeep and headed up the hill. At the lower elevations the snow didn't stick and was just a layer of slush. A little higher there was some sticking on the ground in the woods. Higher still the road was covered, until finally when we were on a logging road about 200 feet or so below the summit of Arvon, there was about a foot of snow on the ground (which wasn't going anywhere). It was windy, very overcast, and the snow was coming down hard. It was great!!! I tried to see how high we could go before I chickened out and had to turn around. Granted, a foot of snow isn't much to drive through if you're from this area, but it was muddy underneath which made it more challenging. The final challenge came when we came upon a road on a gradual hill where beavers had built a dam across part of the road. The water was spilling around the end of the dam in a little creek which was running down the middle of the road and cutting through the snow, leaving a bare rut. I had the drivers side wheels in the rut and the other side on the firm snow covered road, and I just had to see (without getting out of the truck) how mushy the creek had made the road closer to the dam. My thought was if the ground was reasonably firm I could drive around the beaver dammed part of the road and proceed up the hill. I went forward another ten feet and the front drivers side wheel sunk almost completely under the water/snow/mud. I immedeately let off the gas and put it in park, got out and asessed the situation. After some careful digging and even more careful winching with the hand winch (using the 25 foot strap, 50ft cable and a not so nearby tree) the tire was partially out of the sink hole, so I tried backing up. The e-drive on, the 1339 did its job and it backed right out onto solid(ish) ground. I carefully backed down 150 yards, turned around, and left the way I came.

Afterward, I got that good feeling you get when you get out of a sticky situation where you didn't do anything stupid enough to send you walking (which would have been about 8 miles), but made you consider the possibility for more than just a second. The wierd thing was when we drove back down the hill, the snow had stopped down there, the snow that had fallen was melted, and it wasn't as overcast.

It was like we drove from fall to the middle of winter, then back to fall again. Now I wish I brought my camera.

Ol' Doc Brown should have made his time machine out of an FSJ.

Jim
79 Chero. WT