Some very good suggestions! Of course, we always carry carpet scraps, on every trip -- have never needed them, but there is always a first time. We have a lot of "get unstuck" tools -- again, never used, always carried. We have tire chains for both the truck and the trailer. Plenty of survival gear, meds, food, and supplies -- when boondocking in remote places, you never know when a serious mechanical problem or a landslide or a fallen tree will happen. (I always carry a bow saw, but a really big tree would be quite difficult to cut and remove.)
For the same reasons, we have an elaborate earthquake prep kit at home -- lots of water, fuel, water purification tools, and so forth. When the Big One hits, we will be on our own for a long time.
We have actually done a fair amount of snow camping -- a little less than a week per year, for the last ten years. (That's not a lot if you live in the far north, but it is more than most Californians, I think.) But never in snow deeper than six inches, which is why I thought about a plow attachment. (And we have now decided that we don't need one!)
I fully understand that choosing to go camping in the winter is much riskier than staying home. It is a risk that we accept in order to be able to see things we could never see, such as:
-- Ice crashing off of canyon walls, next to a roaring waterfall.
-- A snowy valley spread out before us in the moonlight.
-- The Milky Way reflected on crusty, icy snow.
-- The red trunks of Sequoia trees dusted with fresh powder.
-- Bear tracks etched in a snowbank next to the trailer.
-- Rainbow sparkles in prisms of hoar frost.
These are all things we have seen with our own eyes during the past two months! And that is why we are so interested in expanding our ability to snow camp safely. Life is short -- go camping!
