re: Hey Yankees, what's a good winter vehicle supply kit

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Hey Lonnie What kind of subaru and how do you like it? Im interested in an outback just for road trips and such. Decent fuel mileage?

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I think the Subaru is the State car of Utah. Lots of them here.

We have a Tribeca, but I've owned two outbacks (and two legacy's). They're good cars and 3 of them have gone over 100K miles before we sold or traded them. I got bitten by the Outback head gasket deal on the 01' outback, but other than that, I've had very few mechanical issues with them. The tribeca had a tensioner pulley cease up that cost me a main timing belt, but it was at 80K miles so it likely needed to be replaced anyway.

As far as the gas mileage, given the nature of the AWD system, there are some losses in that system. I think my 09' outback (the previous generation) got about 25-26 mpg with a mix of city and highway driving.

They are awesome in the snow, and actually OK off road. The only real drawback are obvious the lack of torque and the ramp angle (in the front more than the back). I've taken the Tribeca down some pretty rough tracks here and rallied (figuratively not literally) my older Outback back in the day. When my wife and I were first together about 10 years ago, I took our Tribeca down the Shafer trail (not my video). We met some guys in a couple of tricked out Jeeps. They said to us, "Do you know where you are?" I said, "Yeah, the Shafer Trail. It's the back way to Moab." They looked at us like we were crazy.

Many cans of Vienna Sausage, Pork Head Cheese, Hot Sauce and Saltine Crackers

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There is a dimwit who actually DV'd this post. Wow.

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folks downvote the strangest things. I chalk them up to accidents.

Has the OB favorite “entre” showed up yet?

A good wool blanket and some bourbon and you can survive any blizzard in your car.

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note to self, do not mess with this dude

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Nah, I'm a pushover.

Just being a good Boy Scout, "Be prepared." (Which is ironic, because I was a pretty awful Boy Scout.)

Living out here, there are some pretty remote areas. While we aren't there very often, if you ever got stuck, you'd need to be able sustain yourself for 24-72 hours. Our packs are designed to be 72 hour packs for 1 person, or 24-48 hour packs for 3 people. They could last longer with proper rationing. We also have a SPOT beacon that bounces between our two vehicles depending on what we're doing.



Like an insurance policy, these things are something I hope we ever have to use. I've used the first aid kits pretty often. But the Bug out bags have proved useful too. Days where I've left my sunglasses at home, needed sunscreen in a pinch, or needed rope to lash something down.

I used to do a lot of landscape photography. Long story short, I got into a compromising situation in the backcountry high in the mountains. I contemplated spending the night in the hills unprepared. I had no cell signal and had run out of water and was severely dehydrated. I ended up finding water and had to drink it untreated. My rational was there was nothing in there that would kill me that night. I did a lot of soul searching and praying during a long slow hike out in the dark. My son was pretty young at the time and the thoughts of him growing up fatherless spooked me. I asked for the spot beacon that Christmas.

Making a kit like this is something that I recommend everyone do. You don't have to do all of it at once. Lots of stuff we had laying around the house already. The original backpacks I used were school backpacks fromy 20 years ago. I put lots of stuff in small waterproof boxes so they can be pulled our and taken on day hikes. I wanted something I could take with me on a hike that would allow me to spend a night in the woods if things went bad.

Just food for thought.

Just thought I would show the snowfall up there

Too many rely on cell phones for emergencies, in mountains getting a signal can be sketchy. Personal emergency locator beacons are not very expensive, and work anywhere you can see the sky, and some provide two way messaging.

LINK

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Just thought I would show the snowfall up there

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I love playing in the snow.