When you get many feet of snow, How do you get out?

You wait to get rescued. Stay warm. Only 3 months til spring.

I don’t have a driveway, but a winding metal staircase that leads to the sidewalk. Since my neighbours are lazy buggers, I generally shovel the steps myself (while trying to avoid falling to my death). The sidewalks are plowed regularly, which creates a tidy little barrier which I likewise try to clear regularly. A heavy snowfall (multiple feet) requires regular outings to shovel. No use waiting until the storm has passed; we’d never get out.

I have a garage and, like the rest of the community, a guy who plows, and plows and plows. He knows just where to pile up the drifts so that I can navigate my .3 mile drive. I enter and leave the house only through the garage during heavy snow. I also drive a Subaru Forester just to navigate the bad curves on my drive.

Once on the dirt and then the main roads, there is never any problems. The highway department are pros.

When there’s ice, I stay at home.

I have a plow guy, but to get to the driveway I shovel, go slow, and take my time. Would I really be ahead to shovel like crazy then keel over just before the driveway? The worst one we had was less than 4 feet. The lake affect areas get it worse.

I had to ponder this question this week. A buddy and I drove to the Michigan Upper Peninsula to close his cabin for the winter. It was difficult driving in Saturday through the snow, even with a 4-wheel drive pickup (the cabin is 2 miles from any paved road).

We planned to leave Tuesday, but more snow was predicted so we left Monday.

Our alternative was plowing our way out with a farm tractor that we don’t know how to operate very well. Or getting a farmer friend to snowmobile in and drive the tractor.

It was beautiful.

@jaytkay Wow that is beautiful. Hire me, I’m great with tractors. For that view and experience, I’d go to you.

When I had a suburban home, I loved the challenge of shoveling our driveway.

I still enjoy shoveling the sidewalk and walkway around my apartment building before work.

The city plows the streets. Every few years we get a huge storm, and they plow only the major streets for a few days. Then I don’t bother driving and I take the bus & the train.

I have a snowmelt system installed.

I’m in one of the areas that got hit. Many folks I know with houses play for a plow service in the winter. Some guy with a snow plow/truck comes by in the wee hours and plows your driveway for you. Me, I live in an apartment so it is plowed for me. Easy peasy. And no, not trapped at all. the plow people know that I have to leave the building so they deposit the snow in a pile that won’t block me in. If you live in a house, they are careful not to block you in either.

I don’t have a plow guy. I am the plow guy for my home and 4 other houses on the road.
I have 2 snow blowers. One is a 45 inch wide 18 inch tall intake and drift cutters at least 30” tall. That attaches to a Cub Cadet 1864 super garden tractor with chains and weights. It will throw snow 50 ft. Fantastically powerful.
I also have a Troy Bilt 3090XP walk behind that I keep in the garage. It has electric start. and is real easy to operate. I use it to cut a 30” wide path to the barn and the feeding stations out back. Lately I have been using it to do the driveways too. It has managed to take care of drifts at least 3 ft high. It run it into the drift, back up, and hit it again. The drifts that cover the car are done with a snow shovel. I clear it just enough so I don’t have to get so close with the snow blower. One of my cars has auger marks on the bumper from me getting a bit too close. Oops!