Snow plowing question

[gypsyheart]

I didn't know where else to post, so...

Can a dirt road be plowed? I have never lived in snow with only dirt road access. answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

[edward_4576]

Yes, they can be plowed but not like a regular road. It's not something that just anyone can do. Out on the farm where I grew up they would plow the road but because it was a dirt road they couldn't get all the snow. After plowing the truck would leave a layer of graves and you would still need snow chains to get out of the lane.

[thhermit]

When I saw this question I had to sign up! I have been plowing for years, and most of it was miles of dirt road. The way that I do it is to wait until it is packed down just a bit and then set the shoes on the bottom of the plow to about 2 inches. This leaves just a bit of snow to drive over and pack down. After it is packed you are no longer plowing over dirt, but a nice hard packed snow road.
Go slow for the first few times to avoid sudden stops of the plow vehicle from catching on rocks or digging into the dirt.

After it is packed down good you can drop the plow shoes and scrape the hard packed snow to keep it from building up too much, which will make a mess in the spring.

In the spring you have to be extremely careful when it is thawing and your packed road gets soft. Put the shoes back to a couple of inches or just lift the plow a bit to avoid digging in.

Good luck, winter is on the way!

[flatwater]

I might also add that when you plow try and leave the crown in the road or you will have trouble in the spring.
flatwater

[Rancher]

For over 40 years I lived on a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. We regularly had snow depts of from a foot to as much as 6 feet deep per storm. Our ranch road was 1/4 mile long from the County Road. It was gravel covered dirt.
I always owned a Farmall Super M tractor with a bucket loader on the front and an 8ft blade on the back. It was very simple after each storm to merely drive the tractor out of the machine shed, drive down to the county road and back and the road was clear. The hydraulic controls of the loader and blade made it easy to plow the snow off, down to the gravel so that the road was clear. It usually took me only from 1/2 hour to 1-1/2 hours to plow out the road, depending on how deep the snow was. I recall that we had a three day storm in 1992 that put over 6 feet of snow on the level over three days. Each day, during the storm, as the snow got to a couple of feet deep, I plowed out the road while it kept snowing. When the storm cleared, our road was clear. It took the County 4 days to clear the County road to our cattle guard, using a road grader pushing a large V-Plow, pushed by a D-8 Cat tractor.
Yes you can plow out a dirt road, perhaps even easier than a paved road since the dirt (gravel) gives your tractor better traction.

[Backwoods_Bob]

I plow nothing but dirt road.
my "driveway" is a steep 1/2 mile, and the old logging road it leads to is also just dirt. It's another three miles to paved and plowed roads.

Some winters a timber company will keep the main road open if they are cutting wood, sometimes I do it.

I don't even have shoes on my plow. like Thhermit said, ignore the first few snowfalls and let it pack down good, then plow and watch you don't dig with the blade.

Chain yer truck up and carry a shovel and come along! ;)

Stuck again -
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/etdbob/P1010011.jpg

When the snow gets up to the top of the hood of the truck you can't push it anywhere and it's time to just park the truck and snow shoe in and out for the rest of the winter!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/etdbob/P1010005.jpg

[annabella1]

I had remembered an article I read where someone had made a v-shaped drag that he pulled behind his truck for clearing and repairing his dirt road. But I couldn't find it in the article archives but I did find this one and it is even better:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/burris48.html