Snow Chains??

[eldoctor]

Hi, this is my first post from Chile, South America.
We are finishing summer here, and I am finishing the building of an "A shaped" cabin in the Andes, our mountain chain, in the Lonquimay volcano, because I love the mountain and there`s and snow center (corralco, http://www.corralco.com/site) nearby.


The problem is that nobody has been in the spot where the cabin is during the winter, so nobody knows if it will be hard or easy to get there escentially because nobody really knows how much snow accumulates...we do not expect more than a couple feet, because it is deep in the forest and we hope the trees protect us from heavy snow accumulation. Now in the summer you get there trough a dirt trail (aprox 500-600 mt), with a not so steep climb (up 5 meters in a 30 mt segment), and the rest is mostly flat. I have an ´05 F150 lariat with stock tires (275/65R18), and I do not intend to buy 4 aggresive tires at this point...do you think that snowchains might help? or do I buy a shovel and get ready to work??....Will it be essential to install an electric winch??

Thanx 4 your imput and feel welcome whenever you want to snowtrek here!

Phillip

[Nobody]

Welcome to the site! I hope that earthquake didn't shake you up too much.

Chains will certainly help if you don't want to buy agressive tires. Also look into siping your existing tires. I'm not sure about Chile, but in the US, many tires stores have a machine that can do the siping.

Thing that will help you the most is airing down your tires. This increases the footprint of your tires which reduces the ground pressure and allows you to stay on top of the snow. With your tire and wheel size, I can't really recommend airing down much.

The other thing that will help Tremedously is a locking differential. There are selectible lockers such as the ARB that you can turn on when needed.

If you are dealing with more than a foot of snow, I don't think there will be much hope with your current tire/wheel combination.

Also keep in mind that when there is heavy tree cover, the snow falls off the branches and can create deep drifts.

If you plan on going to your cabin a lot in the winter, it might be a good idea to get cheap 4x4 that you can setup for that purpose. Or at the very least you'll need to get a better tire/wheelin combination for your f-150. One thing to keep in mind is that once the road is punched in, you should be able to follow along pretty easily. Breaking the initial trail is the hard part.

A winch isn't necessary, but it is good insurance to have. The nice thing about snow is you can usually dig your way out!

[eldoctor]

Thanx a lot for your experienced suggestions.
We expect snow to debut in June, so I will update then this topic thread.

Regards

Phillip.