Ugh it's 1 PM and the roads aren't plowed and there are zero tire tracks

[2naSalit]

7. It's true.

I just had to run a long, just shy of 600 miles, round trip through snow pack and ice covered roads this past week. I drove for a living year round for quite some time so I know what I'm in for when I have to drive on that stuff. High temps never got anywhere near +32F the whole time so everything was frozen solid except for the varying levels of melt that was going on with the road surface itself. It took over an hour longer each way including being stuck for miles behind a slow moving vehicle who refused to use the pullouts to let others by.

I'm sorry but if you aren't confident in your driving skills on bad roads, stay off of them, especially major routes through mountains where it's two lane for hundreds of miles. Go with Plan B or C.

But I digress...

You're right, a dry road with snow on it is less of an issue, even with up to a foot of it, but once there's ice on the bottom or top, the whole picture changes.