Living on Dirt Roads...

[Swampy101]

COFlower and vfrpilot are right.

Skill, getting used to the roads will get you through a lot of things. I've seen small cars on the dirt roads driving 60mph without any issues, but they've been doing it all their life. I've taken a front wheel drive 4 door sedan on some pretty bad areas where off roaders would look at me like what the heck are you doing here and how did you get here kinda thing.

I have some roads where, like vfrpilot mentions, the trees are thick around the road and there's sharp corners where the snow just gets packed down into ice and takes a few weeks longer to melt than the rest of the area.

I just put these pictures from last year's snow season for Fox News in Denver and you can see how bad the snow can get - last year I think they called this "Denver's 3rd worst snow season".

Larkspur 2006-07 Snow Season - Page 1 of 1

My Jeep got stuck one, because of tire selection. While they're rated for snow, the manufacturer states that they are not rated for heavy snow. Secondly, we had a a few rains in the afternoon that got hit by freezing temps overnight, then 2 feet of heavy snow the next day. So I was trying to push through 2 feet of snow on top of a more or less ice road going uphill with corners. Luckily, that's my driveway and I just had to walk up to the house. Plowed down to it with my quad the next morning and I was out.

You'll also see (well, it was pitch black out so it's all relative) where a bunch of people got stuck in blowing snow including the tow truck and a cop. This was a bad year though, so don't be afraid. Just drive competently, safely and keep your speed down.

I couldn't believe how many people drive too fast on icy roads. We're not talking black ice either, this is the hard packed white snow ice on the freeways where people are driving 55-65mph. I guess it's ok as I hardly see them taking other people out, just themselves a few miles down the road.

Again, tire selection could save your life.

Edit: I must also mention that I'm on Monument Hill just north of COS and both sides of this hill get hit a lot harder than anyone else.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Swampy101

COFlower and vfrpilot are right.

Skill, getting used to the roads will get you through a lot of things. I've seen small cars on the dirt roads driving 60mph without any issues, but they've been doing it all their life. I've taken a front wheel drive 4 door sedan on some pretty bad areas where off roaders would look at me like what the heck are you doing here and how did you get here kinda thing.

I have some roads where, like vfrpilot mentions, the trees are thick around the road and there's sharp corners where the snow just gets packed down into ice and takes a few weeks longer to melt than the rest of the area.

I just put these pictures from last year's snow season for Fox News in Denver and you can see how bad the snow can get - last year I think they called this "Denver's 3rd worst snow season".

Larkspur 2006-07 Snow Season - Page 1 of 1

My Jeep got stuck one, because of tire selection. While they're rated for snow, the manufacturer states that they are not rated for heavy snow. Secondly, we had a a few rains in the afternoon that got hit by freezing temps overnight, then 2 feet of heavy snow the next day. So I was trying to push through 2 feet of snow on top of a more or less ice road going uphill with corners. Luckily, that's my driveway and I just had to walk up to the house. Plowed down to it with my quad the next morning and I was out.

You'll also see (well, it was pitch black out so it's all relative) where a bunch of people got stuck in blowing snow including the tow truck and a cop. This was a bad year though, so don't be afraid. Just drive competently, safely and keep your speed down.

I couldn't believe how many people drive too fast on icy roads. We're not talking black ice either, this is the hard packed white snow ice on the freeways where people are driving 55-65mph. I guess it's ok as I hardly see them taking other people out, just themselves a few miles down the road.

Again, tire selection could save your life.

Edit: I must also mention that I'm on Monument Hill just north of COS and both sides of this hill get hit a lot harder than anyone else.

I saw your weather station on top of your house in the photo. Bingo. I went to my Weather Underground Google Map site and.....

Weather Station History : Weather Underground

We're just on the other side of Bald Mountain from you near 83 and 105. Here's Jan 2007 at our home.

[millsy]

Swampy:

I really enjoyed your pics....holy cow is that a lot of snow! I love your 'luge' that is just awesome!

[Swampy101]

Originally Posted by Charles

I saw your weather station on top of your house in the photo. Bingo. I went to my Weather Underground Google Map site and.....

Weather Station History : Weather Underground

We're just on the other side of Bald Mountain from you near 83 and 105. Here's Jan 2007 at our home.

Nice drift Charles! Been here almost 2 years now and I still get 83, 85 and 86 confused.

During that winter, I decided I should put up a weather station since the weather people couldn't predict the weather for nothing in my area. Now, I'm one of their regular spotters (well, for Fox Denver anyway). After the spring, I decided I needed a lightning detector system too, so that's been added to that weather station on the roof now too. I was glad I did. Probably helped me save a lot of electronics in the house. Some times in August last year, I was recording over 800 strikes per minute in a 300 mile radius around me.

Our UPS delivery guy, in his 50's probably, lives out on the plains by Kiowa and has all his life. He didn't have anything to deliver one day, but came up here to take shelter.

This bolt missed him by 9 minutes. This one struck the road right where he was driving.


We had a lot of close calls that month.

If you want to see more weather related images, check out my weather section here, more so in particular starting on page 2. Although, Page 1 does have a bunch of lighting and rainbows together.
Weather Related Images - Page 1 of 4

I also have a bunch of really cool sunRISE panoramas under the panorama section and some neat star shots under sun and moon.

I'm not familiar with Bald mountain yet. I know Spruce Mountain, right in front of my house, Monkey Face to the north of my house and Rattlesnake to my east, besides Monument Hill of course.

We almost bought a place off of 83 and Greenland, but glad we didn't since that driveway was waaaay long and we found out later that the roads near it weren't well maintained.

I do know where the 83 and 105 meet though, but just not familiar with the surroundings other than the middle of Monument.

Bryan

[Swampy101]

Originally Posted by millsy

Swampy:

I really enjoyed your pics....holy cow is that a lot of snow! I love your 'luge' that is just awesome!

Thanks Millsy. If you want to see more, go to my website at :::: B.Maine - Best Viewed at 1024x768 ::::. Alhtough, not much in the way of snow pictures there, I do have a lot of weather, panorama and landscape shots from here.

Just remembered, I had set up a camera on a motion sensor to see what animals came in the middle of the night. We were coming back from the Theater in Denver and it dumped 3 inches of snow in are area before I came back. The camera caught me backing into my garage.

So, This car has almost slick tires on it and is only about 4 1/2 inches off the ground and I didn't have a problem with it. This year anyway. Last year, my first year here, I wouldn't have taken it out at all with the little experience I had. But Like CoFlower said, experience will take you through most anything in any type of car.

Bryan

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Swampy101

Our UPS delivery guy, in his 50's probably,
I'm not familiar with Bald mountain yet.

Bald Mountain is NE of County Line (El Paso Douglas) and I-25

80132 - Google Maps

Sounds like the UPS guy we have (bald dude?)

Check out Bill Kappel's website; He is the King of Palmer Divide weather data. Tons of downloadable excel sheets..

Bill Kappel


Here's his weather station:

Weather Station History : Weather Underground

[Swampy101]

Originally Posted by Charles

Bald Mountain is NE of County Line (El Paso Douglas) and I-25

80132 - Google Maps

Sounds like the UPS guy we have (bald dude?)

Check out Bill Kappel's website; He is the King of Palmer Divide weather data. Tons of downloadable excel sheets..

Bill Kappel


Here's his weather station:

Weather Station History : Weather Underground

Ahh, ok, that's the name of that one. Looks like the mountain just to the right of the lightning strike above, right?

I actually just saw Bill's weather page a few weeks ago. He's a little outdated though. The downloadable data part is from last year and before.

I don't put my full data up, but have the dailies and stuff up there.

Did you go to my weather page or just the wunderground one?

If not, you can look at it here: http://theswampbbs.com/weather

There's a link on that page for more detailed stuff, but this is the one I look at throughout the day and night. Has 2 web cams that update every minute I think I have it set to right now. Top one I never move even though it has pan and tilt functionality, but I like to do time lapse stuff with that one, watch the clouds rolling by or whatever with the images from that one. The second image is one that I move all the time throughout the day, sometimes I'll find a hawk in a tree and zoom in with it (26x optical zoom on that one!). The third one (I'm trying to be a pro photographer), I took one of my cameras and I have a motion sensor set up on it and it takes a few shots when it see's something move, usually at night, the skunks, coon's and foxes will set it off down by our bird feeders every night between 9pm and 6am.

Anyway, Kirk Hanes has a really nice site up with a lot of info and a bunch of the state webcams and so forth. The way he has the webcams up, he has a map to the right of them all showing where they are and to the right of the map, he has an elevation graph showing the differences in elevation.

If you haven't seen that one, it's here: Kirk's Weather Zone - Monument, CO

Our UPS guy doesn't handle your area, I think he just does Spruce Mountain Road to the 105, but north of Palmer Lake and to Larkspur/Perry Park. He's not bald, but his name is Bob and he drives a 4WD delivery truck.

[Charles]

That's great stuff. I do remember Kirk's; had forgotten about it.