A friend of mine lives in the mountains of Colorado on a dirt Forest Service road. The road is pretty rough with some pretty bumpy spots and depressions.
It’s at 9,300 ft elevation and gets plenty of snow. Probably a quarter mile or so to plow. Road is basically 1.5 car widths wide.
I’m trying to find her the right snow removal vehicle /plow.
Might go with a jeep or truck with chains and a plow.
Or an ATV/side by side with plow.
In any case, any mountain people out there that could offer some advice on the rig as well as tips to keep the road passable through winter?
No experience with snow plows, but the go-to for private/ country roads is a good tractor. A snow plow attachment is probably common in those areas.
Because you need weight and traction to move the snow. Surplus military cargo truck would work. Old dumptruck or garbage truck have merit.
But a tractor is a good all-around resource for backwoods areas, useful all year round. Good for clearing brush and trees from the road as well. Get a frontloader, backhoe, and snowplow attachments.
Something like this will probably work: (there is a series of construction videos)
For those who want a summary, attached a multi screw snow blower to a surplus army truck
Yeah, I lived for 33 years at 11,200 feet elevation. I moved in April partly because of health reasons. My wife diligently measured the snow. Sometimes we would get 30 feet in a season.
We lived on a gravel/mud road. For most of that time we where the only full time residents on the ‘road’. So, we where not a priority for the county to plow us.
I had to plow my driveway of course, and sometimes the road. I found that short bed pick-up trucks did the job. No exta cab BS. You want a short wheel base for a tighter turning radius. Those trucks are hard to find though, so a regular full size long bed will do. Also, you will have better vision with out the ‘extra’ cab.
I also recommend putting a winch on it. Of course you can’t put it on the front, I got mine installed on the back. You want to get out of trouble, not deeper in it. Also chains on all 4 wheels. Also mount some extra LED lights on the back. You spend just as much time backing up as going forward.
I recommend an automatic transmission. I was told that the autos do better for this back and forth, back and forth as that gets hard on a clutch.
Since the road is ‘pot holed’ most plows have adjustable feet, or skids on them that you can adjust to keep it an inch or two off the road. This helps keeping you from plowing mud/gravel.
My situation was pretty extreme, so I also had a 4x4 Kubota tractor with a loader on it. My snow storage sometimes got too full so I had to move it. I included the plow truck and tractor with the sale of the house.
Now I’m at a measly 5000’ elevation, I’ll get a snowblower, and the most difficult outside chore is mowing grass.
All kidding aside, when I had my hip replaced, I hired a guy to plow. He was way in over his head, I had to winch him out 4 times. Part of the reason for this was my drive way is uphill away from the road. It’s much harder to plow up a steep slope.
My father and mother moved to a heavy snow area where they had a driveway about 800’ long. Nowhere near a quarter of a mile, but significant. He almost immediately bought an old IH Scout II (this was the 70s) and a snow blade, put chains on it, etc. It took him about a year before he switched to a walk-along snow blower. He said it took a little longer to clear the driveway, but it was overall a lot more efficient and a lot less hassle. (He was also using the Scout as his second car for commuting to work year-round.) One of the factors was that the driveway was pretty steep with a drop-off on one side. I know they make snow blower attachments for small and large tractors…maybe even for some cars.
Lived at 10,000’ south of Telluride for 25 years, now in Montana. In a big CO winter maintaining your own driveway is very tough. We had the local excavation company do it with a backhoe with a 10’ blade on it, and every so often they would have to bring out a full size loader to push the piles back. Once they actually brought out an airport size snow blower. We now have a 52 HP tractor with a 74” snow blower which works well but it’s a $50k rig. Note to your friend–some neighbors decided not to plow and to just snowshoe/snowmobile in and out. The house caught on fire and the fire department couldn’t get in, so insurance denied the claim…
I assume he had to take the chains on and off to use it as a car to commute. And then put them back on. That would truly suck.
Yikes! for an 800’ driveway? I started with an 8 hp Toro snowblower, but my driveway was 100’. Was also very steep with drop offs. Even after decades of plowing it, I had to be very careful. It was frankly a bit scary. I did have a lot of parking area up top, but it soon became to much and I knew pretty quickly that I needed a plow.
When I had a bit of a landslide, I knew I needed a tractor/loader too.
Yes, he had to chain up the Scout to plow, which was a pain. Then he probably bought more plow for the Scout than he should have. He had to wrangle that on and off several times a year and was forever having problems with the attachment, connections, etc. He kept saying he’d be better off buying a third car, but he had no more garage space.
He then switched to a 32” or 34” self-propelled two-stage snow blower. I think it was semi-commercial or something,but definitely pretty wide. Once he chained it up, it basically dragged him along just walking. He’d do four passes, I think.
Later, he got a snow blower for his Cub Cadet. But he always avoided plowing.
Having to put chains on and off my truck took … 30 minutes a wheel. So it stayed at home all chained up. Understand that our winters where 9 months long. Un-chaining it became rather pointless.
And, Umm, get a 4x4 chained up on all four wheels stuck and your going to have a very, very bad day. It’s the biggest equipment you have. An SUV will not help. AAA will unstick a truck with a blade on it FYI (well they will charge you a pretty penny, you are on your own)
That’s why I put a 10,000 pound winch on the back. That does not help if you HAVE to go forward. I had a pulley block that would either change the angle or double the pulling power depending on how you hooked things up.
I once had to ‘un-stick’ a CAT D3 that I rented. That is a story for another thread though.
I guess I could google it, but never having installed chains, why does it take so long? I had assumed you laid the chains behind/in front of the wheels, then drove forward/back onto them and fastened them. Even one at a time - why 30 mins?
Big tires, Not crazy big, 1/2 inch overall diameter than OEM. I had some very aggressive chains though. Very heavy. It got to the point that instead of backing over them to install them, I would just jack up one wheel at a time with a hydraulic jack and put them on that way.
It was actually easier to do it that way. You have to consider, that the chains had to be just right for the season as I was often steering full left to full right in low range 4x4. They had to be right. If you lost one you could take out a break line. That would not be fun in the dark in a foot of snow.
I tried the driving over them back and forth, but could never get them right. And yes, I had plenty of bungee cords to tighten them.
