Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

Paul Mac will be running a day snow trip in either July or August. As it will be dependant upon snow and weather conditions there is no set date. It will be run at short notice so please keep an eye on this thread for updates. He has pre-run this recently and it sounds good.

As with all snow trips please make sure that you have the appropriate clothing to cope with the conditions and a long handled shovel as well as your basic recovery gear.

It's on Saturday 11th July.

Heading up Mt Useful to Mt Skene then back over Mt Selma and home via Warburton.

You may need to carry fuel as it is a fair distance between servos.

Meet and depart from the BP servo at Labertouche.

If you're interested please phone Paul on 0427 509 496

I can not make this one.

P.S. kickoff is 8:00AM - BP Servo Labertouche. ( cnr highway and Sand Rd. ) Please be on time.

Also note - fuel for small vehicles WILL be an issue, if its like the last trip START WITH A FULL TANK and bring a full jerrycan.

Will this be an 'easy' trip or do I need 33s and lockers? I have a standard GV without much ground clearance and ordinary tyres. I've been on the mt selma rd before and if we stick to that type of track it shouldn't be a problem.

Also, will it be cold enough during the day to affect my fuel (diesel)? Shell told me standard diesel is good down to zero and the Suzuki mechanic had never heard of winter diesel. So should I add some kerosene to be safe?

Steve,

I'm not running this trip, but my guess would be that the roads travelled will be generally 2WD dirt - snow depth will be what will effect the difficulty. In snow, the key to to get the cars in ground clearance order - most at the front, to least at the back- that way, only the lead couple of cars should have problems - after that it gets easier and easier.

We've had any standard cars over Mt Skene, even on years with very deep snow.

You won't require alpine diesel unless you are stopping overnight. As that's not the plan, it's not a consideration.

Alpine diesel is sold in Mansfield (and I think Jamieson) but I don't know where it is sold on the south side of the range. It's a blend of diesel and heating oil.

Steve.

How was it, any pics?

Had a good day. It started out cold, then got colder, and finally, was really, really cold.

Six cars made the trip, 2 Toyotas, 2 Daihatsus and 2 Suzukis.

First photo is at Mt Useful. My dashboard has an outside temperature display which was showing 5 degrees, but the wind was blowing hard, making it feel colder.

At Skene it was 3 degrees, but again felt colder. We arrived at the summit at the same time as a couple of other groups, so there would have been 20+ cars up there at one point. My stock standard GV made it through the snow, which surprised me. I really thought clearance would be a problem along with the traction of the road tyres.

After Skene we backtracked to the Mt Selma Rd. Up till now the roads had been easy 2wd but the Selma road was slippery mud from start to finish. We then followed a very bumpy road to Matlock and then down a fast and smooth (and fun) Frenchmans Tk(?) to Big River, onto Warburton and home.

A big thankyou to Paul for running the trip. The standard was easy but challenging enough (for a novice) to make it fun. And my diesel didn't freeze.