Winter Camping for the season in New Hampshire

[In Pursuit]

Enjoying winter camping in my Oliver, snowmobiling every weekend.

[Bill and Nancy]

I almost took mine to Cannon mountain skiing last week end but I decided for the two nights it wasn’t worth getting salt all over it. But it’s coming out for April, it’s the first time I will have another few days to go someplace. 
Bill

[Rivernerd]

3 hours ago, Bill and Nancy said:

I almost took mine to Cannon mountain skiing last week end but I decided for the two nights it wasn’t worth getting salt all over it.

The biggest concern that keeps me from towing our Elite II during the winter is road safety.  I have towed my much lighter raft trailer on snowy roads a couple of times, with sometimes scary results.  No accidents, but some close calls.  So, I gave up towing it until the roads are no longer snow-covered or icy in the spring.

Have any of you more veteran Oliver owners experienced loss of traction, fishtailing or loss of control on snow-covered roads?  Any issues climbing hills on snow-covered roads while towing an Elite II?

[John Dehne]

 That’s cold!  I had to put another log in my stove after looking at your picture. We winter camp and have been out in 20 deg. with Lite snow with no problems. It’s the wind at those temp that makes it bad. Seems like the older we get the more we like the 3 season camping. Really enjoy being outside. I wouldn’t  want to winter camp in any other camper but our Oliver. Stay warm and have some fun.

[GAP]

We just got back from two week in Quebec.  Was -15 one night and lots of overnights around 0.  Aside from burning a 30lb LP tank every 3-4 days, was plenty warm.  In spite of lots of mods to drive temps in entire garage to mid 50s on those nights, the water system froze up - when it was just above 10 degrees out.  Turns out reflectix is decent at minimizing radiational heat loss but really not great at radiational heat loss so even in the warmish areas, where a pex line is up against exterior insulation, it will freeze.  Luckily, no damage done.

We parked for a few nights by a none-too-fancy, stick built, stock 25' class c RV.  Had for-real pink board house insulation and matts of stuff that was similar to our reflectix but was thicker sheet plastic between the foil.  They had no problem with their water systems on the -15 night.  

Had lots of useful take aways from the experience.

[GAP]

12 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

The biggest concern that keeps me from towing our Elite II during the winter is road safety.  I have towed my much lighter raft trailer on snowy roads a couple of times, with sometimes scary results.  No accidents, but some close calls.  So, I gave up towing it until the roads are no longer snow-covered or icy in the spring.

Have any of you more veteran Oliver owners experienced loss of traction, fishtailing or loss of control on snow-covered roads?  Any issues climbing hills on snow-covered roads while towing an Elite II?

We've done a few thousand miles of mid winter towing with our '21 Elite 2.  Mostly with an F150 with 3 peak stamped tires, so they are solid in the snow.  There is a lot of weight which helps traction but it's spread out over a large area and 8 tires which hurts traction.  Have had a couple of minor straight line slides but never had the trailer sway or side slip.  

Generally, the trailering necessitates extra caution on compacted, shallow snow.  The weight seems to help it out pretty good in deep stuff but, your chances of the trailer slipping increases for sure.  Given a day with black ice or light snow over ice, I'd opt for sitting it out.  For the most part, if the pavement is covered, we're in 4wd and taking it slow.  We have but have never deployed tire cables for both Oliver and the Ford.  They would probably make for very secure driving but are a pain in the butt to use and not really up to covering lots of ground.  Really an emergency option.