Auto-socks Rock

Excitement and adventure on our shopping trip!

Yep, last night we pulled ourselves over the bealach with some drifts getting to about 2' and covering at least half the road. It was sleety, rain at sea-level at about 21:30 and the sign didn't say road blocked; so, we gave it a go!

After coming to a sliding, spinning halt just at the 1:4 section (the bit that leads straight up to the hairpin bends) in about 3'' of snow I put the auto socks on (front wheels only), and rolled back onto the road. We had a hairy minute or two there: the back wheels had spun sideways, coming to rest with one just off the road. Of course this meant reversing with the front wheels having to go just off the road too. In fact the snow was thick enough to stop us from just rolling backwards and I needed some power to get us moving! After a getting all four wheels back onto the road (without sliding into the corrie), we were ready to continue our ascent!

After some initial slippage, we drove, slowly and carefully, straight up the 1:4 section, around all the bends and right over the top without slipping or sliding. The socks actually came off for some reason as we passed through the deepest drifts on the top, just past the viewpoint, behind the 'rotten rock', but the Yokohama's on the front seemed to keep us on track through the descent.
Autosocks certainly do the trick. Haven't given the chains the same sort of treatment, but for ease of use the socks scored 10/10. For getting us up and on with our journey they scored 10/10. They just let us down by coming off through the deepest drifts.

I'm going to question the company that distribute them in this country to see why that might have happened.
Also to see whether there's value in putting them on all four wheels on a 4x4.

There were a couple of points, most notably close to the car park on the top when we couldn't see any of the road markers; hairy moments in whiteout blizzard condition! Visibilty was reduced to about 15m with the headlights.

We were very glad of the extra ground clearance afforded by the x-trail and, of course for the reflective posts...keep the white on your right!

Hope you're all keeping well :-)