Deep snow fail....

After almost 4 years of 4Runner ownership I finally met my match in 4' drifts. I would have gotten better pics but I was in a particularly foul mood at the time because I was trying to get across my property to rescue my Polaris Ranger which was stuck in an even worse jam. Getting stuck in deep snow with my previous Tacomas and Tundras was a fairly regular occurrence for me. I think I had convinced myself that the 4Runner was immune to it. Tried it all.... 4 Low, rear locker, crawl modes, etc..... wasn't happening.

 

Everything has its limits which you discovered.

 

Snow to the top of your hood? Don't think any vehicle would make it through that.

 

Nah, he just needed more speed. And maybe one of those plows they run on trains.

 

I had made a first pass on my driveway with the plow earlier in the storm.... so I was driving thru only about 16" of fresh snow....unfortunately, that fresh snow was on top of a thick layer of ice. I was on an off-camber section of my driveway and the 4Runner slid from 16" deep snow into well over 3' of snow. Like a dope, I just tried to power thru it. After 30 mins of shoveling, i had to slink back into the house and ask my wife for the keys to her Silverado.

 

that’s funny, and surely frustrating!
good candidate for tribute to stuck 5th gens
https://www.4runners.com/threads/tribute-thread-to-stuck-5th-gen-4runners.42349/

 

Where’s the 4runner? Seriously though, that’s a lot of snow.

Deep snow is the great equalizer. Once it’s high enough to support the weight of the vehicle by the underside, you’re pretty much not going anywhere. Best you can hope for is for the snow to be hard enough to keep the vehicle from breaking through. But that’s kind of impossible to achieve for any amount of distance. Once the tires break through, the only way to get through is to dig out, and then clear the snow between you and where you want to go.

 

Did the Silverado get it out, or do you have to wait for Spring?

 

You're not stuck until snow is packed up in the engine bay to the underside of the hood. It wasn't a 4R, just a '68 Nova inline six w/ studded snows, and a long lane of deep snow, and countless running start attempts to get out to the plowed road. The farm tractor pulled me out the following morning. Those were the days lol.

 

OK, ill ask. So did the vehicle who pulled BOTH the Polaris AND 4runner out get stuck?

 

I did pull the 4Runner out with the wife's truck....but I was EXTREMELY careful about it and shoveled quite a bit beforehand. If I pulled a hat trick and got her truck stuck too I would have been truly screwed. This has been the February from Hell.

 

Might be time to consider...

 

Or better yet become a snow bird.

 

I wanna see you do this… I am sure it is a quick swap each winter. Lol.

 

That is a lot of freakin snow holy cow! Be safe, it’s real easy to mess yourself up working with that much snow. I messed up a knee a couple years back clearing some snow. Took a year to get better, but even then it still ain’t right!

I gotta say those things are pretty neat. I looked into them briefly and was surprised how fussy they are. And so expensive. Pretty much would need to live Antartica to have them be worth it lol.

 

Saw this bad boy last year.