Eagle Ridge is one of those very rare 4x4 trails that is literally next door to a heavily populated urban area. It features interesting rock fins, ledges and boulder fields that provide lots of entertainment for owners of stock or moderately modified 4x4's. But if you've got a seriously built 4x4 it can be a bit of a yawner. Dual lockers, 35" tires, and a compliant suspension will let you walk through the entire trail system without a hitch. But when there's snow up there, it's a completely different story.

Last night, I rode along as Wil, Tom and Joe did a night run up Eagle Ridge to do some snow 'wheeling. I'd never done much hard-core snow 'wheeling before. I've driven on snow-covered forest service roads and I was familiar with the benefits of high floatation tires and low gears in deep, deep snow. But the addition of narrow trails raised the difficulty level by an order of magnitude. The source of the difficulty is the huge number of tree wells.

From Wikipedia:
"A tree well is a dangerous void or area of loose snow around the trunk of a tree which is surrounded by deep snow. A person, especially a skier or snowboarder, can easily fall into this well, possibly causing serious injury or death."

"The branches of the tree shelter the area surrounding the tree trunk from snowfall. Thus a pocket of air or loose snow can form in the vicinity of the trunk. Tree wells are encountered in off-piste or ungroomed trails and on ungroomed piste boundaries. The risk of encountering a tree well is greatest during and immediately following a heavy snowstorm. Low hanging branches can further contribute to forming a tree well, as they efficiently shelter the area surrounding the trunk. Wells have been observed to be as deep as 20 feet. Wells can also occur near rocks and along streams."

Tree wells are hazards for four wheelers, too, because on a narrow trail where trees are very close to the tire tracks, they cause depressions in the snow that can easily cause the vehicle to slip sideways toward the well. The closer the vehicle slides to the well, the steeper and deeper the slope becomes. The damage might be limited to dragging the vehicle along the tree trunk or its branches. Or, in a worst case scenario, the vehicle could actually tip over into the tree.

But before you even reach the point where you need to worry about tree wells, you first need to get on top of the snow.

For most drivers, snow tires are skinny with a very tight tread pattern that lets the tires compact and bite into the snow. They're designed on the assumption that the snow will easily support the weight of the vehicle. That assumption falls apart when you start four wheeling in deep snow. Skinny tires will dig straight down until your vehicle is resting on its frame. Snow 'wheeling demands big tires and low air pressure. This gives you a nice, fat contact patch, just like a snowshoe. To turn these large tires with any degree of fine control, you'll need low gears.

Tom entertaining us at the log bridge.	He didn't make it through but it wasn't for lack of trying. Tom's Land Cruiser has a STAK 3-spd transfer case and sits on 42" IROKs.	Once the trail narrowed, our progress slowed down a lot as we fought to stay out of the tree wells. This is Joe's Toyota with dual transfer cases and 37" IROKs.
Wil's Toyota has a Toyota transfer case feeding into a Dana 300, turning 40" Goodyear MTR Kevlars.		Despite the great floating provided by the huge tires and low air pressures, sometimes the trucks ended up digging themselves into the snow.
Even with a double-lined winch rope, Wil still had to resort to using a shovel because the wet snow packed down as hard as rock when the winch tried to pull the front differential through the wall of snow.	For most of the night, this was my view from Wil's Toyota. Slow going.	Tom's 'Cruiser starting to slip off the trail.

As I said, this was my first time doing snow 'wheeling on a narrow trail and it was a real eye opener for me. The first surprise was how well the big tires allowed them to stay on top of the snow. Even when they were making tight turns and climbing out of the grip of tree wells, the trucks showed an amazing ability to pull forward instead of burying their tires. But the bigger surprise was how the nature of the trail's difficulty had changed with the addition of snow. During the summer, the trail is a little bit narrow at times but that's about it (I'm referring to the higher altitude sections where the snow was, and where the exposed rock sections were not). But when covered with a few feet of snow, the trail has a pronounced crest running along its center. Straying too far to either side would allow gravity to start pulling you off your intended line. So even a straight section of trail could demand the driver's full concentration lest he end up sliding sideways down an embankment. Most of the side ways sliding resulted in the 4x4 leaning into a tree. The trucks took a lot of sheet metal punishment, particularly Wil's and Joe's pickups. Joe had an especially awesome dent where the sheet metal on the rear corner of his cab actually folded over onto itself like an accordion. This feat was even more impressive given the fact that he has a full exo cage around the cab! Sliding into tree wells, occasionally digging straight into the snow, and dragging the trucks through the trees quickly became the norm that evening. While we made constant progress, it was slow. But when we were less than a kilometre from the end of the trail, Wil's Toyota completely shut down when a sawed off sapling jammed itself into his fender well, just behind the front grill.

When I said it shut down, I mean that the engine died immediately, as well as all the electrical components. It was just like what happens when you have a close encounter with a UFO...at least based on what I've seen in the movies. After a lot of head scratching and poking at various bits and pieces inside the engine compartment, we figured out the problem. The tree had shoved itself against a narrow bundle of wires where it ran through a hole in the sheet metal, and had cut the insulation of several of the wires, causing an instant short circuit. This blew a large 30 amp main fuse located on the fender, which caused the engine (and everything else) to die. Of course, no one had a spare fuse (it wasn't a common blade-type fuse). We ended up fixing things by separating and taping up the exposed wires, and using some chicken wire to bridge the fuse's connectors, thereby allowing power to flow through the fuse again.

We were going to celebrate this awesome MacGyver fix by firing up Wil's BBQ grill and cook up the burgers he had been promising us all evening. But as Wil was unpacking the grill he stopped, groaned loudly, and screamed out that he forgot the gas connector hose. Needless to say, I was crushed. Absolutely gutted. Eating the cheese that was to be melted over the burgers wasn't a very satisfying substitute.

With nothing else to do, we pressed on to the lookout and were rewarded with a remarkably clear view of the Vancouver/Burnaby nightscape.

Here's the damage to the wires, after we peeled off the harness wrapping and separated them. It was very hard to spot the damage at first.	The fix: some chicken wire jammed into the top of the fuse housing to bridge the contacts.	Our retribution on the sapling that did the damage. It is now cut down to size. Of course, when the snow melts, it'll probably still be 3 feet off the ground. Actually, it's probably not a sapling at all, but a branch belonging to a tree that has fallen across the trail.
Happy that we fixed Wil's truck, not so happy that we don't have hot hamburgers as a reward.	Photographic proof that we reached the lookout.	Joe checking his cell reception with the cities of Burnaby and Vancouver in the distance.
I took this picture a couple of days later. Check out the awesome body damage sustained by Joe's Toyota. A very thick tree branch or fallen tree got wedged between the cab and exo cage and must have levered itself into the truck as it drove past.

Heading back down the trail was much the same as coming up. Frequent extractions from tree wells and loud thumps as the trucks' sheet metal sustained harsh beatings from the trees and their branches. I finally got home and into bed by 4am the next morning, and I was damned glad that I didn't bring my 4x4 on that trail. I like my sheet metal just the way it is.

...lars