The Final Countdown: Back Road Goodbye
The first days of autumn are officially here. Yet, myself and my bud Mother Nature don’t seem to want to say goodbye just yet.
Late summer drives along seasonal roads lined with trees with leaves turning bright yellow, to be replaced by vibrant reds and finally with hues of auburn only to fall to the ground, make it seem impossible that in just a few weeks those same roads will see their first snowflakes. As the snow continues, piling up into inches and then feet, these same roads become impassable without a snowmobile.
I know this. For fact.
In 2016, I traded my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, a beast of an off-road daily driver, outfitted with 35-inch Mickey Thompson Baja ATZ tires and a go-anywhere, do-anything mentality that comes with Jeep ownership, for a 2016 Summit White Camaro.
However, the winter prior to trading four-wheel-drive for rear-wheel-drive and summer tires, I went for a little jaunt into the 100-acre woods. Actually, the 9,200-acre woods known as Winona Forest, a New York State-maintained sanctuary for hunting, fishing, hiking, snowshoeing, snowmobiling and riding ATVs. I’d been through some trials in the forest before, during the fall and summer. So on a bright and sunny February afternoon, with the glare of diamond-like snow in my eyes, I figured it’d be fun to explore what the seasonal roads had to offer in the winter.
Now, I vowed to stay off of the groomed snowmobile trails and knew my level of expertise in off-roading was novice at best. But I was in a tricked-out Rubicon, what could go wrong?
A lot. A lot could go wrong.
I cruised down the plowed access roads, gawking at the snow that seemed to reach the window sills piled on the sides. I followed in the tire marks of the men and women before me who’d obviously thought snow-wheeling was a great idea, too. There weren’t many tracks to follow, but they were there. Until I reached a trail that I knew I’d been down before. I was an expert, I thought. I’d driven it in its gravel and dirt from a time or two before.
This road in winter, however, was a whole new ball game.
About 500 feet onto the trail, I knew I was in over my head. Just keep moving, I thought. If you keep moving, you won’t get stuck. That mentality worked for the next 500 feet of the trail I was blazing. A short incline in the trail, and the two feet of snow that blanketed it did me in. My front axle sunk, forcing snow into the engine compartment and steam escaping out of the hood. Mildly panicking, I did what the Internet forums had told me months before: I engaged the rear differential lockers. Locking the differentials makes both wheels move at the same time. The idea being that if both tires move together, if one is stuck, the other helps out. That didn’t work.
Short of calling for help and looking like the total moron that I was/am to be out in the middle of a forest, in the winter, alone, I did the only thing I thought feasible. I turned on the front differential lockers, turning the Jeep into a land-tank (it seemed in my head), and sent it. The mini-van engine, because all Jeeps are underpowered, roared and I went approximately no where. I performed an age-old Northern New York get-out-of-jail trick and rocked the SUV back and forth. First gear, into reverse, back into first, and reverse again. By a miracle of all that is holy a tire or two found traction, and I flew backwards down the trail that I forged as I came into this mess.
I didn’t stop until I hit plowed road. From that moment on, I vowed to never be a “snow wheeler” again. Maybe that’s why handing over the keys a few months later was such an easy task.
Nevertheless. A new Jeep has entered the family as of late. A 2020 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon with all the bells and whistles and a little more refinement than the original Rubicon that inhabited my garage space. At its heart, it’s still a Jeep and capable of anything. For now, I’ll enjoy its company on the gravel-lined roads of the Tug Hill, watching fall turn to winter and enjoying the silence afforded by trees rocking in a quickly passing warm breezes and not another soul in sight.
