Winter has hit with a vengeance. We've had a pretty good snow storm over the last few days, with probably about 25 cm (10 inches) of snow, mostly on Sunday and Monday. This morning I went into work very early, and left correspondingly early, came home, changed into work clothes, grabbed a dinner to go, then drove to Smiths Falls. I ate dinner in the club house, then drove out onto the airfield. I quickly discovered that although the road to the club house had been cleared, the ramp and taxiways had not. There were quite a few tire tracks heading down the taxiway towards my hangar, and there was a guy on a backhoe plowing the parking lot that I could summon for help if needed, so I decided to see how bad it was. The car was spinning a bit in the thicker spots, but I managed to keep constant forward progress. Then all the tire tracks pulled into the third hangar down, and all I had in front of me was virgin snow, of unknown depth. I kept the speed up, and made it all the way to the end next to the last hangar, which is where the RV-8 is. I almost got stuck turning around, but I managed to get the car pointed back towards the tire tracks I had made. I was so glad for the snow tires I had put on last week.

I went into the hangar to put castors on the Ikea shelves I had assembled. Although you put some thought into where to put shelves, inevitably you eventually wish they were somewhere else. But they always have so much stuff on them that you don't want to unload them so they can be moved. I decided this time to put castors on the bottom, so I will be able to move them around, if needed, without unloading them.

After finishing with the shelves, I went out to the car to bring in the load of stuff I had brought to the hangar. I was dismayed to see that there was enough wind that some snow drifts were forming. I was quite concerned that the snow drifts could cause me grief, so I decided I had better leave ASAP before they got any higher. I almost got stuck a couple of times, but I managed to make it back to the road. Whew. I was afraid for a while that I was going to have a few hours of digging before I got off the airport. Lesson learned - after a snow storm, call the Flying Club to check the ramp and taxiway status before driving out to the airport.