Deep snow techniques?

[Garandman]

All moot since OP has not posted since. He must be busy plowing....

 

[arrow]

All moot since OP has not posted since. He must be busy plowing....

Could be. Or he could be watching it melt if he's down south far enough.

 

[aczlan]

I have tried to dig out 30" at one go with a B7500 (loader), BX2660 (front blade) and L3830 (rear blade, then rear blower) and it is not fun. Once I got the blower on the back, it was a piece of cake.
Should be even better this year with the blower on the front.

Aaron Z

 

[Rustyiron]

All I know is I should have loaded my plowing "stuff" up and headed south last Wed. or so. There's a lot of money to be made doing drives with an 8' blower down there.

 

[ray66v]

Deep snow, is where a loader mounted snow plow is great.

You can push the top half of the snow first, and then the rest is manageable.

The top of piles can be pushed off for, visual clearance too.

It's always better to go out, and plow during the storm, if it's going to be deep snow.

 

[oldpilgrim]

For those of you considering using the 'fire blasters' to burn the snow away, don't forget to have a plan on where to put all the ashes.

 

[bcp]

For those of you considering using the 'fire blasters' to burn the snow away, don't forget to have a plan on where to put all the ashes.

I've never had ashes left over from burning snow.



Bruce

 

[MossRoad]

We have to burn our snow in containers with screen mesh no more than 1/4" openings, have a supply of water nearby, and be attended at all times. And only in daylight hours.

 

[kebo]

Since he got 39" in this storm I suspect the OP is a lot further south than you.
I'm from Vermont and still have ~75 acres in East Fletcher. I could generally plan on not having to shovel snow during summer vacation.

Down here where we got the deep snow in this storm I can often go the entire winter without having to shovel.

Even though now some shoveling is required

Is that a Corgi?? You're a good pet owner though, cleared out a nice little area for it to poop in!!!!

 

[jyoutz]

For the last 10 years I have maintained 2000' of gravel road with too small of tractor. Last month we got 29" of snow in one storm. Here are the tricks I use: If you can drive straight down the road I will push the show straight ahead with my loader bucket about 8" above the ground, while keeping my rear blade about 4" above the ground. I occassionally have to do a wing off the road to push the snow when it gets too hard to push. This will clear a path to work from. Then I will do another path in the same fashion till I have some room to work. To clear larger areas (parking pads, etc...) I will back up and push the snow with the back side of my blade. Slow, but it works well. You have to take a lot of passes to back blade, but this technique works very well with small lightweight tractors. Oh, and the 29" took me 5 hours to clear that 2000' road.

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

 

[Garandman]

OP must be hard at it.....

 

[jenkinsph]

For the last 10 years I have maintained 2000' of gravel road with too small of tractor. Last month we got 29" of snow in one storm. Here are the tricks I use: If you can drive straight down the road I will push the show straight ahead with my loader bucket about 8" above the ground, while keeping my rear blade about 4" above the ground. I occassionally have to do a wing off the road to push the snow when it gets too hard to push. This will clear a path to work from. Then I will do another path in the same fashion till I have some room to work. To clear larger areas (parking pads, etc...) I will back up and push the snow with the back side of my blade. Slow, but it works well. You have to take a lot of passes to back blade, but this technique works very well with small lightweight tractors. Oh, and the 29" took me 5 hours to clear that 2000' road.

I pushed that same snow with my x749 and rear blade. Pretty large event in Alto and Ruidoso with Bonito area having the highest in the state at over 36 inches.
Still that was powder and easy to work with compared to the northeast with wet snow, much heavier and harder to push imo.

 

[RjCorazza]

I used a 6' blower for the East Coast storm of 30-35". Fast and no snow banks to contend with. I got some large skids designed for a giant blower and bolted them on the outer plate keeping the blower 1/2" off the pavement. Ran the thing right over the grass to find driveway edges with zero turf or pavement damage.
Anyway... Since the topic is FELs, I cleaned up with the bucket and a clamp on "Ratchet Rake Snow Edge" that was awesome. Protects paved surface, used down pressure, float, and also can load and dump snow with it on. Very heavy duty, and a replacement 2.5" thick plastic edge is only like $65.00

 

[RjCorazza]

I used a 6' blower for the East Coast storm of 30-35". Fast and no snow banks to contend with. I got some large skids designed for a giant blower and bolted them on the outer plate keeping the blower 1/2" off the pavement. Ran the thing right over the grass to find driveway edges with zero turf or pavement damage.
Anyway... Since the topic is FELs, I cleaned up with the bucket and a clamp on "Ratchet Rake Snow Edge" that was awesome. Protects paved surface, used down pressure, float, and also can load and dump snow with it on. Very heavy duty, and a replacement 2.5" thick plastic edge is only like $65.00

 

[bjmsam]

I couldn't really push the snow, I had to scoop it up, back up a little drive off to the side a little and dump. In the deeper drifts I would have to back up further maybe for a place to dump.

That was my approach to tackling the ~30" accumulations in 2010 and 2016. A blower would have been easier (except for blowback on my open station L3710), but the infrequency of such events makes it hard to justify the expense and storage (and the challenge is something I enjoy about tractor ownership).

Friday at 3pm:

Saturday at 11am:

Sunday morning:

The driveway is under there somewhere:

Digging down hill:

One scoop at a time:

Success!

Cute photo of the dog. I had a few animals to dig out, too:

 

[Dead Horse]