maple flats
03-15-2017, 12:58 PM
For me it was the blizzard of 66. I was home on Christmas break from college and I went on a campout with my boy scout troop, of which I was an assistant scoutmaster. We took it easy, which was not our norm, and we had a cabin to stay in, real hard to heat but none the less it was a cabin. One the afternoon of our first night we started getting lots of snow, so some of the scouts made snow shelters to sleep in. They were warmer for sure. We were at a scout camp that was on a fairly steep hill, maybe about 30%, but at any rate, thru the trees we could see the road and where our cars were parked from near the cabin. It wasn't long before we could see the road but could no longer see the cars, not even the bumps they should have made in the snow. At that point the scoutmaster decided it safer if we packed up and went home, before a snow plow made one or more of our cars (none of us had 4x4 trucks back then). We were only about 25 miles away from homer but the roads were so bad it took us over 2 hours to get there.
Then next day I awoke at home to look out and see snow up above the window sills on the house and with the cellar those 1st floor sills were about 5.5' off the ground. We had over 6' of snow, but being a blizzard it was not uniform depth. We did have phone service so I called my fiance (now my wife) and then I decided I'd cross country ski up (on an old pair of military surplus skies) and see her. The main state road which ran behind our house had not yet been plowed, so I had the road to myself as I skied up to see her. I at times was looking down on the electric wires that ran beside the road (the poles were set part way down the hill on the side of the road, but at any rate it seemed strange. When I got to my fiance's house about 4 miles away (I lived 2.5 miles out of town and she was in town) I had seen no roads that were plowed yet and it was late morning by then.
My fiance's mother wanted us to go to a mom & pop store for a small list of necessities so she put on her official cross country skiis and me on my surplus skiis, and we went the roughly 2 miles to the store. We got what we needed and returned to her house carrying a single paper sack full. Then I had to carry the bag in one arm and drag one ski pole with that hand while using the other ski pole to help keep me steady. The store was in a flat area and about 3/4 of way was flat. However my fiance lived on a moderately steep hill (my current home is at the bottom of that same hill). The snow plows tried the next day to get up the hill, but kept having to back up, they finally quit for the day. The next day they brought an old 4x4 Walters with a V plow on it (and it sounded like it had no muffler). They kept ramming into the snow drifts but progress was slow. Smart me, I went out and suggested they go around and plow on the way down, but they told me they couldn't because if they got stuck going down they had no equipment big enough to pull them out. This hill was about 3/4 mile, bottom to top. I don't know how long they took to reach 1/3 up where my fiance's home was, but they spend something like 2 hours getting from there to the top. They would ram it with the Walters, then try to back up, sometimes they could, other times they had to hook a long chain onto a 6 wheel dump truck with the outer tire on each side removed, chains on the remaining ones and about 2/3 full of sand for weight. Once they managed to get to the top, a 6 wheel dump truck with road and wing plow came down the hill. He had the plow down but the wing was up so it moved the top over but left about 4' deep where the bottom of the wing cleared. Doing that, in fairly short time they had 1 lane opened and they left for the day. The next day it was widened to a narrow 2 lanes, but 2 cars could get by each other slowly.
The final reported snowfall for the blizzard of 66 for us was 71", but just over an hour north west, in Oswego (On the south east shore of Lake Ontario) had 95".
I've been in other blizzards but none to equal or exceed that one.
Then next day I awoke at home to look out and see snow up above the window sills on the house and with the cellar those 1st floor sills were about 5.5' off the ground. We had over 6' of snow, but being a blizzard it was not uniform depth. We did have phone service so I called my fiance (now my wife) and then I decided I'd cross country ski up (on an old pair of military surplus skies) and see her. The main state road which ran behind our house had not yet been plowed, so I had the road to myself as I skied up to see her. I at times was looking down on the electric wires that ran beside the road (the poles were set part way down the hill on the side of the road, but at any rate it seemed strange. When I got to my fiance's house about 4 miles away (I lived 2.5 miles out of town and she was in town) I had seen no roads that were plowed yet and it was late morning by then.
My fiance's mother wanted us to go to a mom & pop store for a small list of necessities so she put on her official cross country skiis and me on my surplus skiis, and we went the roughly 2 miles to the store. We got what we needed and returned to her house carrying a single paper sack full. Then I had to carry the bag in one arm and drag one ski pole with that hand while using the other ski pole to help keep me steady. The store was in a flat area and about 3/4 of way was flat. However my fiance lived on a moderately steep hill (my current home is at the bottom of that same hill). The snow plows tried the next day to get up the hill, but kept having to back up, they finally quit for the day. The next day they brought an old 4x4 Walters with a V plow on it (and it sounded like it had no muffler). They kept ramming into the snow drifts but progress was slow. Smart me, I went out and suggested they go around and plow on the way down, but they told me they couldn't because if they got stuck going down they had no equipment big enough to pull them out. This hill was about 3/4 mile, bottom to top. I don't know how long they took to reach 1/3 up where my fiance's home was, but they spend something like 2 hours getting from there to the top. They would ram it with the Walters, then try to back up, sometimes they could, other times they had to hook a long chain onto a 6 wheel dump truck with the outer tire on each side removed, chains on the remaining ones and about 2/3 full of sand for weight. Once they managed to get to the top, a 6 wheel dump truck with road and wing plow came down the hill. He had the plow down but the wing was up so it moved the top over but left about 4' deep where the bottom of the wing cleared. Doing that, in fairly short time they had 1 lane opened and they left for the day. The next day it was widened to a narrow 2 lanes, but 2 cars could get by each other slowly.
The final reported snowfall for the blizzard of 66 for us was 71", but just over an hour north west, in Oswego (On the south east shore of Lake Ontario) had 95".
I've been in other blizzards but none to equal or exceed that one.