Update: I bought chains and learned to put 'em on, but slipped over the pass while it was legal (and pretty much OK) to avoid chains. But here’s what I learned:
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Driving in the snow is the ultimate tactful hunter ride. Do nothing fast so as to upset your hot, chestnut TB whom you are trying to make look slow and relaxed. It’s a bit of a kinesthetic skill and I was grateful to be able to call on my decade of driving around in the Northeast where, really, you didn’t chain up, but drove with the equipment you had… and, hopefully, some intelligence.
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The modern chains that have the stiff cable for the inside of your wheel truly look easier to put on than the old ones with pure, snakey- flexible, all-chain variety. I put those on a car once while I was in high school and that taught me to never want to chain-up again. But I would use the modern ones now if I had to.
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The whole deal with chaining up the trailer is, actually, about staying legal (at least in Oregon). Here, there are two situations for snow areas. If things aren’t too bad, all vehicles must carry chains or “traction devices” which mean tires that have been rated (for legal purposes) as such. But! When things are worse and all vehicles must use chains, the thing being towed must also have chains on an axle with brakes on it.
Not sure about this last part as most people I spoke with talked about putting just one set of chains on the trailer… maybe staggered as described above, or maybe just on the rear-most axle. The idea with the rear-most axle is to 1. Create the most drag at the back of the whole rig, and 2. to make sure you don’t have a problem with a chain that falls off the front axle and gets wound around the one just behind it.
I think the best choice for the tow vehicle is to put the chains on the rear axel. I drive a diesel, so I’d hope that the extra weight of that big engine would help me out up front. To me, the biggest concern is the jack-knife situation, so I think I’d like my traction to be at the mid-point of my rig. I do understand that people think front-wheel-drive creates better handling for cars.
In any case, that legal requirement why the PNW peeps talk about chaining up their trailers when no one else, anywhere else seems to do that by choice. I had never heard of that in the Northeast. But that’s the law here.
