Have you ever been stranded in snow?

[sparrowhawkhere]

Have you ever been stranded in bad weather in your car? I’ve always wondered what would happen if you were snowed in and stuck in your car.

Food

Yes, in Paris. There are worse places to be stranded.

We were once skiing in Austria with the kids. We opened our balcony window and there was a 20ft wall of snow. Freak weather we were snowed in but it was a beautiful sight.

Yes, 1990 for 6 hours on the motorway just outside Birmingham. I was young and with a group of friends so we kept our spirits up but it was bloody cold and we had no food or provisions (and this is long before phones and 24 hr news!).

Yes travelling home after night shift . Traffic slowed & eventually stopped on motorway . I had water in the car and wrapped myself up in an old coat I had in boot . Pre mobile phone days .
police were patrolling and checking we were ok . I dozed a bit and at some point we were brought hot drinks & rolls then got slowly moving again .
Would have been worse if had young children with me .
Finally got home at 5pm and was due back to do another night shift at 6 pm when I phoned to advise I wouldn’t be in due to the days events I didn’t get a good response .

Yes on the A31 ( the hogsback bit which always has weird weather) in 2003. The snow somehow got blown onto the road and we had to wait for a snowplough to clear it. I had to pee between the car doors. I didn’t have any food but at least had a lot of petrol so could leave the engine running for warmth.

We get snow most years and the snow gates often shut on the very rural road into our village. I’ve been stranded twice on my own and three times with DH. We always have snacks, water, sleeping bags, charged power banks, torches, extra socks and a wind burner stove for boiling water in a box in the boot. The weather can close in quickly coming over the moors and the forecast doesn’t always see it coming.

Kind of.

Went to a funeral a couple of hours away. Afterwards I took a wrong turn because of an unclear diversion sign and ended up in a snowy wood. The road turned into a twisty single gravel track and I had to keep going, hoping I would find my way out according to my satnav... but then there was a slope, and it was too snowy and my wheels started spinning. Trying to reverse, one wheel went into a hidden ditch and then I couldn't move at all.

By this time it was getting dark, and I was all alone in a wood. I called the AA and after a lot of "Where are you?" "I have no idea!" and pin dropping, they said due to conditions it might be hours to get to me.

So, (still in my funeral formal clothes and heels, and by now properly cold) I picked my way gingerly down the track back to a house I had seen, where I rang the bell and a very nice couple let a cold, inappropriately dressed stranger watch The Chase in their living room until the AA arrived.

It took the AA man (my hero!) a while to dig me out and he warned me that there was another slope ahead, and not to stop and just keep going, and he would be right behind me if any problems. So I floored the pedals and set off, sliding at times, gradient gradually getting steeper and still ok, until one more steep section and my wheels were spinning again. Switched off the engine, and sat there slowly realising that I was on my own in another bit of dark wood, but this time with no friendly house lights twinkling and no AA man behind me.

Turned out he had got stuck himself.

Then, I saw headlights behind me: phew, I thought. However, it wasn't the AA man, but a couple in another car who had taken the same wrong turn, and also got stuck at the same point as I did. Fortunately for them (if not for him), they didn't have to call the AA as he was still there, shovel and all, to get them out.

So then there were two cars stuck, and one AA van stuck behind us.

(Chatting to the couple, we discovered that we had more in common than merely being unable to read diversion signs; we had actually been to the same funeral. By this point slightly hysterical, we took a selfie for our mutual friend, the widow.)

The husband then took control, and my car keys, and managed (engine screaming) eventually to get my car up the slope, and sent me off - within five minutes I was on the dual carriageway A road which I should have been on hours previously.

I never saw them or the AA man again (though I did speak to him to confirm I wasn't still lost in the wood and thank him, profusely). I did send a thank you card to the nice couple, which basically had a description of what their house looked like (and their cat) on the envelope to aid the postman, since I still had only a vague idea of where I had been all that time.

God bless the AA and all similar roadside services, and their employees who go out in bad weather to rescue (to their own disadvantage) what the French call les incompetents, I say. Thank you to my hero.

Respect at your ultra-preparedness, @CMOTDibbler.

Yes, left the car where it was and walked home.

No, but back in the day when I had a long commute, I always had a sleeping bag, emergency food and water, snow boots and a shovel in the car during the season. Being prepared is everything.

As a child on a family trip long drive back in a country where heavy snow is normal and people are always prepared and they also drive accordingly.
Freak snow storm out of the blue, the motorway was really bad and no car could move. I remember the wind was very strong before we were stationary and you could feel the car move from the wind. No idea how my dad drove through all that although he was very experienced at driving in bad weather. It was particularly bad.
I don't remember being cold, we probably had blankets in the car and, of course, proper winter clothes. The main worry was running out of fuel or the battery going flat keeping the heater on.
This was long before mobile phones were invented. And there was nothing on the radio either. The only news came from drivers talking to each other.
We were stuck there for many, many hours. Maybe 8?
For some reason I don't remember any of us needing the bathroom but maybe my memory fails me.
Anyway, eventually we started moving, stopped at the first petrol station off the motorway to fill up just in case. Longest queue there, more waiting, worry about the petrol station not having much fuel available. It was dark by then.
We then drove on to the nearest town. by sheer luck my mum's company had some sort of residential building for company use only, some apartments for when employees had to stay in town for meetings. I think they must have had similar setups in various locations. And we were lucky to spend the night there. No idea how we got access but we were in, it was a very fancy apartment, nice and warm and everything. There was another family there stranded like us and i remember we all ate together, maybe the parents bought something from a local supermarket?
It was a tiring day I suppose and the parents were worried but, as a child, I didn't think it was a bad day because I truly felt so safe with my family and how they sorted everything out.
Let me tell you my parents and the parents from the other family drank quite a bit that night! they were saying how lucky we all were to find this place for the night and they joked at the unfortunate events of the day and were in a very good mood.

February 2009. I remember driving from Reigate to SE London. Lots of BMW drivers abandoning their RWD cars!

Yes. On the motorway overnight. I live in Scotland. It happens and I was prepared I had extra blankets, clothes, snacks, water, cigarettes (it was 25+ years ago) so I got comfy and settled in till we were all dug out.

no mobile phones so just had to wait it out.

several house later had the best full Scottish breakfast at Abington services once we got moving again.

in more recent times we’ve been snowed in our house for 2-3 weeks twice. The year of the Beast from the East and the year of Snowmageddon.

Despite having lived in the Canadian Rockies for 20 years, no, I've never been stranded in the snow. We always drive with appropriate emergency supplies, just in case, and we've often had to cancel or postpone travel plans. Sometimes that's just because the weather looks too bad and other times because an accident has completely closed the road but we've never personally got stuck, so far, thankfully!

My 2 adult DCs just had to travel ~3.5hrs by car this morning and one of them sent me this photo from the midway point of their drive. That recycling bin is probably around 4ft tall 😄

Yes I was on a coach, it was supposed to be a day trip to London. We hit thick snow near Birmingham and were stuck on the motorway for several hours. We were lucky that the driver kept the engine running and we had a toilet and hot drinks. It was before mobile phones so we couldn't let anyone know. People from the cars around us kept disappearing up the bank, presumably to have a wee. Suddenly we started moving. It had been an accident that took hours to clear.

Back in the late 70s, my parents ran a pub in a small village. There was a motorway a few miles away from us which became blocked in a snow storm over night. All vehicles had to come off at the nearest junction, and the road led to our village. We were the first sign of life on the road and all the stranded car and lorry drivers pulled over at our pub. Everyone bedded down for the night in the bars and my mum did breakfast in the morning!

@LorenzoCalzone wjays a wee pouch ? Something to pee in or a Scottish term for small food pouch ?

Foil blankets are a good call and hand warmers ,water etc and wellies

And power bank and torch.
Are power banks safe to keep in the car

My DP was last year. Got stuck on a hill on the Snake Pass. Snow hadn’t been forecast, albeit it was cold. The car just wouldn’t budge. Our breakdown service wouldn’t come out to him until the morning because of the risk to them, understandably. It happened around 11pm and breakdown got to him at 7am.

Unfortunately for him, he’s a near freak and won’t keep anything in his car. He likes a tidy car. Whereas I’m the opposite and my boot is full of coats for all seasons, blankets, wellies etc.

It was a very cold night for him, indeed!

In that situation, I’d have been a frightened wreck up in the middle of the hills, with limited phone signal, pitch black, and unable to move. I was so worried something would happen to him.

We went to check on my nan in the 80s even the lada couldn't make it up the hill I reminded my mom about the pedestrian cut through so we abandoned the car and waded through my nan was fine she just wanted bird food for the wild birds...😂

I guess was the same time that I was stuck on the M4 for 7 hours.
I just got on the motorway to go to work and the snow just fell down Like a thick blanket.
I was 5 minutes away from home but obviously couldn’t go anywhere.
I called work and they said oh don’t worry all your clients have cancelled anyway!
The next junction then closed and I had a 7 hour journey home, wearing my uniform and flip flops and no supplies in the car!
Absolutely nightmare

Yes. Usually it took 25 minutes from my house to my Reading office (although an hour if I had to be in for a 9am meeting.) We had seen the weather forecast, and the first snowflakes were falling, so we left the office around 3pm, though things weren't that bad.

The weather can vary between Reading and Basingstoke, though it's only 15 miles (I was once snowed in on my road when there wasn't a single flake in Reading.) And it was worse as I progressed along the A33. It was fine to the end of the full carriageway bit, but then it was pretty much nose to tail (to be fair, this is not unknown on the A33, even in good weather.)

In my car, I have a couple of blankets and an ex-army poncho-cum-groundsheet, which I was glad to use to go to the loo by the roadside.

I had a bottle of water, and a satsuma left over from lunch. I had my work bag, which included a book. There were people about. I was texting people on my mobile. So I didn't feel worried.

I arrived in Basingstoke and eventually abandoned my car at the side of the road near Tesco. Apparently a lorry had jack-knifed on the hill up to the ringroad on the ice. So I got my wellies out of the boot (which is where they live,) picked up my bag, locked the car and walked home. 7 hours door-to-door in the end.

Walked back the next morning (it was about a mile and a half, collected the car, then worked from home.)

I grew up in rural Dorset, so I have been known to travel with a sleeping bag and shovel in the boot when snow is forecast.

Thankfully not but if I’m driving when bad weather is forecast Ido prepare - extra clothing/blamket, hot water, snacks, power bank

Randomname is that Winnats Pass in the pic?