>In our 'storm of the century' on New Years most of the western portions of Oregon and Washington were covered with 3" to 8" of snow, covered by 1" to 2" of ice. The only cars that could safely get around were SUV's and 4X4 trucks. period. Was that really your 'storm of the century'? Dang! I was in the central Willamette that week. Drove past PDX on the 505 at 2am on 1/31...sharing the road with skidding trucks and copious amounts of snow. Usually in Montana, we laugh at the news reports when we hear about the road closures, school closures, and wrecks that occur in cities where people aren't used to snow. 'Silly warm-weather folk', we think. But my wife and I got quite a surprise when we found the 2" of 'coastal' snow to have about as much water content as 2-3' of the mountain snow we're used to. Rather than blowing right through the snow like we're used to, we found we were nearly hydroplaning on it...and our little 'Subaru Legacy Sedan FWD' with studded snow tires did a little better than the locals' rigs, but not by a lot. When PDX gets a dumping like that, then temps fluctuate from barely freezing to barely thawed, that's serious bidness! Paddling content: paddled on the 3rd in Budd Inlet, Olympia, WA --flakes falling the whole time. Then we got into a great snow/ice-caused traffic jam on I-5. 'Silly warm-weather drivers' going too fast for conditions! Shawn *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Feb 04 2004 - 12:27:13 PST
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