Event Portland Snow!

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Snow is only enjoyable if you don't have anywhere to be. The aesthetic of it is beautiful. But if you have to or need to do anything it's a pain in the ass.

Finally happy I can just relax without those thoughts.
 
If it was just me on the road during a snowstorm things would be fine. Couple things:

Momentum is your best friend.

Always run yellow lights.

Always wait a couple seconds and look around when a light turns green.

Give yourself a huge following distance.

Take corners slow.

Most importantly have a vehicle equipped for snow.

Unfortunately there’s so many awful awful drivers that when the weather is fine it’s still crazy out there. Add snow and it’s a mess.

Ive driven over Mt Hood en route to Bend in white out conditions several times. I’ve driven in eastern Washington near lake Roosevelt in blizzard conditions and been fine. I’ve driven for work from near the I5/217 interchange (through the Terwilliger curves) and white knuckled it for 8 hours while all kinds of cars were abandoned, even chained up semi’s and I was chugging along.

For the simple fact everyone else on the road is dumb as fuck I choose to avoid driving in it unless absolutely necessary.

:cheers:
 
THE HCP said:
Good advice. Maybe I got lucky. I have summer tires on my car and absolutely destroy the snow. Never put chains on. Low clearance obviously, but I’m not taking it off road.
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I believe I told the story here before when we still lived in Portland and there was a huge snow storm may 15 or 16 years ago, over the winter break. My wife was working downtown and had to go pick up my youngest. My older kid was in winter-camp at the zoo and I went there in my old 1991 RWD BMW. I saw that the snow was starting and changed the tires to snow tires I had (it was a cheap alternative to rally tires - I was an amateur rally driver at the time and that's why I had them). Got on the 26, it was blocked from here to eternity so took a side road, went up to Burnside from Cornell? and down the hill after the cemetery - it is rather steep and winding there - I was basically dodging AWD SUVs and trucks that were pirouetting in front of me into the ditches. Made it to pick the kid and got a message from my wife that her AWD Subaru was having problems moving so she very sensibly parked it and took the Max to the stop near the zoo - where we picked them up in that old rear-wheel-drive BMW and made it home traversing the same steep, winding road again without any issues.

Feck, the reason I had snow tires for that BMW was because my wife stopped letting me take her Subaru to rally events since I would return it all dirty and she did not want this to happen when she got her latest newest Subaru. I later replaced the BMW with my own Subaru and until I got snow tires for it - my rally performance in it was worse than my performance in the BMW with snow tires (of course, on the same kinds of tires - the AWD is very useful, but tires > AWD in low traction situations).
 
MickZagger said:
For the simple fact everyone else on the road is dumb as fuck I choose to avoid driving in it unless absolutely necessary.
Click to expand...

I take this mindset all the time.

On a totally unrelated to MZ's original post but I'm too lazy to start a new post...

I have a pet peeve when it comes to people who aren't from Oregon, complaining about how people drive in the snow here, as if the snow here is the same as it is other places.

It's like when Southern Californians say Portlanders can't 'drive in the rain', when they rarely have to drive in the rain whereas we do all the time.

It's the same with snow. Sure, it doesn't happen a lot here, but dry powdery snow isn't difficult to drive in if the elevation doesn't change much and it's not sloppy snow or has ice on top of it.
 
MickZagger said:
If it was just me on the road during a snowstorm things would be fine. Couple things:

Momentum is your best friend.

Always run yellow lights.

Always wait a couple seconds and look around when a light turns green.

Give yourself a huge following distance.

Take corners slow.

Most importantly have a vehicle equipped for snow.

Unfortunately there’s so many awful awful drivers that when the weather is fine it’s still crazy out there. Add snow and it’s a mess.

Ive driven over Mt Hood en route to Bend in white out conditions several times. I’ve driven in eastern Washington near lake Roosevelt in blizzard conditions and been fine. I’ve driven for work from near the I5/217 interchange (through the Terwilliger curves) and white knuckled it for 8 hours while all kinds of cars were abandoned, even chained up semi’s and I was chugging along.

For the simple fact everyone else on the road is dumb as fuck I choose to avoid driving in it unless absolutely necessary.

:cheers:
Click to expand...

A couple years ago when we had the big snowstorm that showed up 5 hours early on a Friday, i was doordashing a couple orders just to get some money in before the storm hit.

They said it was coming in at 7. It came at 2 pm. And I was 10 miles from home. It took me 5 hours to head west on sandy for 40 blocks before my car got stalled on the last hill before all level road to my house. Because someone stopped mid hill so I had to slide backwards hoping they didn't hit me and I didn't hit another car.

Several times I had to blow by people who STOPPED at stop signs. Lots of coasting down roads and weaving in and out of cars that forgot you need momentum to drive. One of the wildest experiences I ever had driving. People thought you could just stop and start like normal. My blood pressure rose substantially that day lol.

And again, a shout out to @PtldPlatypus for bailing my car out of that hill admist several other cars. Was really upset I was that close to making it home! The walk home that night was brutal too.

Also a reminder this was Friday rush hour traffic. Hopefully the only time ever I see Google maps show ALL red.
 
Strenuus said:
Snow is only enjoyable if you don't have anywhere to be. The aesthetic of it is beautiful. But if you have to or need to do anything it's a pain in the ass.

Finally happy I can just relax without those thoughts.
Click to expand...
Today has been great for this exact reason. I walked to the grocery store and just enjoyed it. Tomorrow my kids both have doctors appointments in the morning. Really hope we don't get a hard freeze overnight.
 
My mother called a fresh dump of snow "the great equalizer"
 
Shaboid said:
Today has been great for this exact reason. I walked to the grocery store and just enjoyed it. Tomorrow my kids both have doctors appointments in the morning. Really hope we don't get a hard freeze overnight.
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Unfortunately we will. Until about noon. I called out of work 4 days ago lol. I knew what was coming.
 
I wonder what Carmelo Anthony would think about this snow!
 
Phatguysrule said:
It never lasts long enough to bother shoveling, in my opinion.
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AMEN to this FAMS! I’m surrounded by neighbors who today spent hours out there shoveling snow….. just went out with the wife to get some Chinese food and our sidewalk is almost melted thanks to Mother Nature. These are the same guys who rake leaves EVERY DAY in the fall and I just let mine blow away onto THIER yards! #BAM
 
THE HCP said:
AMEN to this FAMS! I’m surrounded by neighbors who today spent hours out there shoveling snow….. just went out with the wife to get some Chinese food and our sidewalk is almost melted thanks to Mother Nature. These are the same guys who rake leaves EVERY DAY in the fall and I just let mine blow away onto THIER yards! #BAM
Click to expand...
I’m convinced that in the fall one of my neighbors sits at his window watching for leaves to fall and proceeds to run outside and rake up each individual leaf as it falls.

To be fair, his yard is basically immaculate.

Me… I’m good for raking 1x a week.
 
About the only good thing I get from my HOA is the leaves get taken care of weekly in the fall. And keeping a bag of snow melt in the garage for occasions like this pretty much makes a snow shovel irrelevant.......unless we get hit REALLY hard.
 
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