[christensent]

Went up to Heliotrope today not knowing what I'd find, figured I'd just hit downed trees in the road and go somewhere else. But no, the road is clear the whole way! There are some rocky washouts that might stop a car but are trivial to cross in any high clearance vehicle. The last 3 miles of the road are thick hard pack snow re-frozen into glistening water ice over pavement. I had no problem going up and never spun a tire after putting the Jeep in 4WD. Heliotrope trail is a well traveled icy trail, used microspikes. When I got to one of the creek beds just before the end of the trail I followed some boot tracks uphill and went to 6000ft where the glacier starts on the climbing route. The surface was a mostly supportive ice crust (with the occasional painful ice-crust-posthole), crampons and an ice axe were required above treeline. The drive down was great fun after the ice got wet from the day's heat... put it in 4lo in 1st gear going 2MPH and was sideways within seconds of leaving the parking lot. Spent 1hr 20mins going down 1.9 miles with both left tires in the snow on the up-hill side because it was the only way to get down without killing myself (there's no margin for error on that road), drove probably half a mile of it completely in the ditch. Survival-driving... Honked around blind corners since I was on the wrong side of the road and the only way to stop was to drive right into the ditch, which required the luck of having the ability to steer at any given time. Just crossed my fingers and thought happy-thoughts at the culvert crossings. Touch the brakes and absolutely nothing happens even on level sections.

[zephyr]

[iron]

would be nice to see a vid of that drive!

[Matt]

Good reminder on the driving story, for how the condition of winter roads can change during the day. Roads that are hard frozen in the morning, can change drastically if it's a warm sunny day. I haven't had the problem you mention with slick wet ice, but have seen roads where the car rode on top going up, but then sank deep into the softened snow coming down.

[iron]

[DIYSteve]

That road can get spooky slick. I've crawled down that road that road at 2-3 mph in an AWD car after ski touring up there.

[pushkarwallah]

tire chains are cool...

[Brushbuffalo]

Nothing worse than water over ice ( well, maybe thick Utah gumbo mud)! Glad you made it down! Goes to show that often the drive is more dangerous than the hike!

[christensent]