Historic Hood River
Snow Day
11-12-2019
Notes
Nothing special here, just an image I enjoy. Alva Day shot this on January 29, 1929. Close examination reveals it’s still snowing pretty hard. I believe those are Alva Day’s partial fingerprints on the right.
I’m always impressed by photos of old cars getting around in slippery conditions. Maybe this winter I’ll chain up my Model T to see how it handles. Or better yet, maybe we can convince Dale to conduct one of his WAAAM Model T driving classes on a snow day? Doing donuts in a hundred year old car seems even more fun than doing donuts in a modern car.
Charlott
It has always amazed me how prior to all the modern snow clearing equipment and the types of snow tires we have now how well they "back in the day" managed to get around. My Dad never let snow be an issue with him, if he wanted to go to a basketball game didn’t matter, off we went. Yes, he was chained up, but many roads were not plowed. I can remember one very snowy night, but don’t recall where we had been. When he got to where Fir Mountain takes off of 35 he said, "hold on!" That road had well over a foot or so of snow on it. On going around the corner and onto the stone bridge he gunned that old 1950 Ford to the floor board and up that hill we went as fast as we could go slipping and sliding all over that road. Up to the very top, whipped it into the drive way and safely home. Never batted an eye.
Dale Nicol
Arthur, once we get the Ruckstell rear end, installed in WAAAM’s 1926 Model-T snow mobile, that would be the time for real snow fun!
Dale Nicol
Arlen L Sheldrake
my low slung camry is but a snow plow…..will never forget father John telling the story of doing a corner in downtown HR, hitting a curb and breaking the wooden spokes of one of his car wheels…..or my doing a corner on the heights in uncle’s WW II jeep and ending up on Ed Vannet’s (BB coach) parking strip. yep, snow was fun then….
love the snow on the trees and wires……
ArthurB
If you haven’t seen the Model T with the snow track adapter Dale is talking about, drop by WAAAM to check it out. Model T engines and frames were used for any purpose you can imagine. The tracked snowmobile was widely available in that period, but there aren’t many places you can go to see one.
The Ruckstell rear end he mentions is a two speed differential, which lets you double the choices of gears to two reverse speeds and four forward speeds. I’m guessing you’ll want a nice low low gear for a tracked snowmobile.