Deep snow techniques?

[Royboy]

We got 39 Inches of snow yesterday. I have an older Kubota B2410 with FEL and Woods rear blade. I have Turf tires front and back since I primarily mow fields with it, but do have chains on the back so am not entirely immobile.

It took me all day to just get out of the garage and 50 feet down the driveway (paved). Once I get to end of my paved drive I am then looking at about 1/4 mile of gravel drive.
My biggest problem seems to be how little ground clearance I have under my frame, but this is really deep snow and the drifts are even higher. Finding a place to put the snow as I move it a bucket at at time is a real challenge. Just not sure how to attack it.
We don't get a lot of snow here, and I am just not that experienced at moving it effectively with my machine. If anyone has any common sense (or other!) tips that would help me get the best idea I can on tackling this problem would be much appreciated!
Thanks much!
Roy

 

[DuckSlayer1017]

Unfortunately with 39" of snow I think the FEL is your only option. In the future you should consider staying on top of the snow so you can use your back blade, as it is much faster. Unfortunately this requires going out in the worst of the storm every few hours to hit the drive with one quick pass.

 

[Ivan49]

Staying on the top of it is best but you can get it now. Go at an angle on your drive and keep backing up then go forward taking about a half width of your bucket at a time. Once you get it opened up to the road repeat on the other side. Once that is done you can go back and clean up the bottom and widen the drive out if you want. 39 inches of snow is a lot at one shot but here we have got as much as 2 foot over night. I use to plow a drive that was 1/8 mile long like this then I bought a 5 foot blower

 

[MossRoad]

Try doing a herring bone pattern, where you push the snow to the left, then back up and push the snow to the right. Then repeat. Once you get one good path to the left or right, as someone mentioned, take 1/2 width passes if your tractor can't handle full scoops. And if possible, push it back off the sides of the drive as far as you can. If you don't, you'll end up with high walls on a narrow road and you'll have a lot of trouble finding places to put more snow if you get any more. And take lots of pictures. You'll shake your head when you look at them again in 10 years.

 

[varmint]

Or, like the railroads used(?) to do... they mounted a surplus jet engine on a flatcar, angled downwards, and slowly ran it to burn off whatever was in the blast. Just imagine what some JP 4 (just tractor diesel, right?) could do carefully aimed in front of you at 3000 degrees! Sorry I don't have a real idea!

 

[jenkinsph]

Try doing a herring bone pattern, where you push the snow to the left, then back up and push the snow to the right. Then repeat. Once you get one good path to the left or right, as someone mentioned, take 1/2 width passes if your tractor can't handle full scoops. And if possible, push it back off the sides of the drive as far as you can. If you don't, you'll end up with high walls on a narrow road and you'll have a lot of trouble finding places to put more snow if you get any more. And take lots of pictures. You'll shake your head when you look at them again in 10 years.

Day after Christmas we got about 24 inches and I used the herring bone pattern in reverse with my garden tractor and rear blade. Worked very well considering how much snow I had to move.

 

[newbury]

Try doing a herring bone pattern, where you push the snow to the left, then back up and push the snow to the right. Then repeat. Once you get one good path to the left or right, as someone mentioned, take 1/2 width passes if your tractor can't handle full scoops. And if possible, push it back off the sides of the drive as far as you can. If you don't, you'll end up with high walls on a narrow road and you'll have a lot of trouble finding places to put more snow if you get any more. And take lots of pictures. You'll shake your head when you look at them again in 10 years.

What he wrote.
You don't say where you are or if you expect more snow but if there is ANY chance you will, be sure to get it cleared back several feet at least. The last time I had to do it I would drive up over the curb to dump a bucket load.

Though I like the idea of a jet engine melting it, if you have one handy

 

[Rustyiron]

Try doing a herring bone pattern, where you push the snow to the left, then back up and push the snow to the right. Then repeat And take lots of pictures.

This is the best way for not enough tractor and too much snow, and 39" is too much snow for most tratcors!
Like Moss said, push it back a few extra feet. This way you can "rough it in" with the above method, leaving whatever amount of snow you feel will not hang up the tractor, and clean it up with your rear blade, putting it in this extra space. Where are ya? We need some pics!

 

[Looking4new]

I would do what MossRoad said.

 

[jenkinsph]

I would have posted some pics but I can't seem to upload anything new for the last month.

 

[zzvyb6]

I'd build an open ended box out of plywood and increase the height of the sides and back of the bucket. Maybe even the bucket bottom, so that I could scoop 40" of snow height at a time and raise it up and over the snow wall you will be making at the edge of the driveway. There's got to be some lumber around in the basement or garage that would work. I'd be willing to tear out some scrap from the deck to get this job done. Bolt some stringers to the sides and rough it it. Yeah, drill some bolt holes in the bucket as necessary.

Of course, there's got to be somewhere to go when you get to the edge of the driveway. I spent a day hand shoveling more snow than that at my folk's house in Buffalo a decade or so ago, only to reach a street that was still unplowed. The City plow hit a parked car and that was the end of snow removal for a while in our South section of town.

 

[paulfun9]

We got 39 Inches of snow yesterday. I have an older Kubota B2410 with FEL and Woods rear blade. I have Turf tires front and back since I primarily mow fields with it, but do have chains on the back so am not entirely immobile.

It took me all day to just get out of the garage and 50 feet down the driveway (paved). Once I get to end of my paved drive I am then looking at about 1/4 mile of gravel drive.
My biggest problem seems to be how little ground clearance I have under my frame, but this is really deep snow and the drifts are even higher. Finding a place to put the snow as I move it a bucket at at time is a real challenge. Just not sure how to attack it.
We don't get a lot of snow here, and I am just not that experienced at moving it effectively with my machine. If anyone has any common sense (or other!) tips that would help me get the best idea I can on tackling this problem would be much appreciated!
Thanks much!
Roy

Not much beats a snow blower for the deep snow and high drifts!

 

[MinnesotaEric]

With deep snow the technique is pretty much the same: You just dive in and get it done.

 

[MossRoad]

I would have posted some pics but I can't seem to upload anything new for the last month.

Downsize the photos. There seems to be a 1meg limit, as I recall.

 

[bcp]

Or, like the railroads used(?) to do... they mounted a surplus jet engine on a flatcar, angled downwards, and slowly ran it to burn off whatever was in the blast. Just imagine what some JP 4 (just tractor diesel, right?) could do carefully aimed in front of you at 3000 degrees! Sorry I don't have a real idea!

Truck mounted, too.

Bruce

 

[Coyote machine]

I'd be worried about the exhaust blowback!:shocked:

39", hope you have some driveway markers to help locate where you need to stop at the edges of your driveway/lawn....

And, depending on the snow's moisture content, sometimes one can ride up a bank of snow while lifting the bucket to toss the snow over the bank, so you don't end up with walls of frozen snow in case you get more. I also try to make the snow piles higher and deeper where I eventually know the melting snow will run off away from the house/barn, etc., when the time comes so the lawn has time to dry before winter arrives again...

 

[arrow]

We got 39 Inches of snow yesterday. I have an older Kubota B2410 with FEL and Woods rear blade. I have Turf tires front and back since I primarily mow fields with it, but do have chains on the back so am not entirely immobile.

It took me all day to just get out of the garage and 50 feet down the driveway (paved). Once I get to end of my paved drive I am then looking at about 1/4 mile of gravel drive.
My biggest problem seems to be how little ground clearance I have under my frame, but this is really deep snow and the drifts are even higher. Finding a place to put the snow as I move it a bucket at at time is a real challenge. Just not sure how to attack it.
We don't get a lot of snow here, and I am just not that experienced at moving it effectively with my machine. If anyone has any common sense (or other!) tips that would help me get the best idea I can on tackling this problem would be much appreciated!
Thanks much!
Roy

I think you are asking way too much of this size tractor. As Rusty Iron states, 39" is too much for a lot of our tractors to handle. I might wrestle with the paved part but for the quarter mile part, Id hire someone with either a pay loader or larger truck to come in and do the job. If this size storm is a freak of nature for your parts, it may be a wiser move than knocking yourself out with the smaller machine.

 

[Garandman]

I think you are asking way too much of this size tractor. As Rusty Iron states, 39" is too much for a lot of our tractors to handle. I might wrestle with the paved part but for the quarter mile part, Id hire someone with either a pay loader or larger truck to come in and do the job. If this size storm is a freak of nature for your parts, it may be a wiser move than knocking yourself out with the smaller machine.

The OP doesn't state where he lives but as they don't get much snow, you're asking for a unicorn. Atlanta has 40 plow trucks. Boston has 800. Montreal has over 2,000.

He might as well get started as priority will be for main arteries. He'll have no trouble lifting 39" of powder, which might be as light as 8-10 lbs/cu ft.

 

[Scooby074]

In heavy snow I use the snowblower

But if thats broken I do the herringbone (sort of)

I put the bucked down and plow a path down the middle (or as far as possible). The snow on the sides acts like a slot and keeps the snow in the bucket. I go until I run out of traction or power (or both). Then I back up and work from the clear centre, a scoop at a time, dumping it to the left or right. I do that until I get a clear path to the main road. After you have a path, the rest is just cleanup and pushing the sides back. It takes a long time!

Good luck!. Having had a broken snowblower for the last few snowfalls sure makes you miss doing it the easy way with the blower. One (small) bucket at a time sucks.

 

[arrow]

The OP doesn't state where he lives but as they don't get much snow, you're asking for a unicorn. Atlanta has 40 plow trucks. Boston has 800. Montreal has over 2,000.

He might as well get started as priority will be for main arteries. He'll have no trouble lifting 39" of powder, which might be as light as 8-10 lbs/cu ft.

Lifting is not the problem. It's where to put it with the limited extension of his machine. He has a quarter mile of driveway and a relatively small tractor. If he is the patient type, his patience will be tested.Finding snow removal equipment is as easy as finding construction equipment and is why I mentioned it first. You can bet guys with pay loaders will be all over the place and if no one can go anywhere, what's the difference of him waiting until the main ways are cleared instead of beating himself silly trying to remove 39" of snow off a 12' wide drive that's a quarter mile long?. His time is better spent calling people with equipment imo.