Snow removal solution for gravel driveways

I got back stateside ~6 years ago now and settled in a wonderful area in North Idaho. I have 5 acres which includes a good length of driveway and turn around that needs plowed numerous times every winter. Yeah, we get a lot of snow here...

One of the reoccurring problems has been how to remove/plow snow without removing the driveway gravel as each and every Spring I find myself, with a garden rake, raking wheelbarrow loads of gravel off the grass where the snow had been pushed and, no matter how careful I was, this would always be the end result.

I got rid of my Skid Steer and V-Plow, purchased a new Kubota tractor. I really liked the Skid Steer, for all the obvious reasons, but the V-Plow was simply too heavy to float properly, and the Skid Steer while being the perfect tool when I first got here wasn't what I needed now - I would have loved to have kept it but needed the money for the tractor and honestly couldn't really justify keeping it plus there were numerous other reasons to sell it so... so sold it, cried about it, and got my tractor. I was searching for a snow solution and was about ready to purchase a plow and came across Edge Tamers for about $200.

Normally shoes are either round or square, not exactly what is needed, but Edge Tamers simply bolt onto your tractor bucket like little skis rather than shoes and ensures your bucket won't dig in. I'm here to tell you they work perfectly! They're heavy duty and as long as you don't get really aggressive and watch what you're doing they work perfectly. I also called the company (American company) and spoke to the guys there, extremely nice, didn't try to BS me.

I use 3 each 4-inch versions for my bucket with very good results.
Anyway, I thought others might be interested. They work extremely well and saved me quite a bit of money compared to the purchase of a plow.




Edge Tamer - Move Snow With Your Tractor Loader Bucket – R2 Manufacturing

 

Great review, Bandit. Good to know such a thing is out there!

 

@Bandit99
Great review, Bandit.
S

 

I made a pull behind snow plow/trail dresser. It's made out of a pallet, 2 pieces of a traeger grill lid, couple bricks and ratchet straps. It doesn't scour the gravel.

 

I just packed down my driveway driving on it repeatedly.

 

I used to use a grader blade turned at about a 20 degree angle, but like you said, it sure rolled the gravel up. Something like this could have been adapted to hook on vertical instead of horizontal, and probably been quite the trick.

Few years back, we finally paved our 1/2 mile of driveway....which ended the gravel problem...and the annual spring load of gravel from the quarry (up to $600 now), but created a NEW problem I hadn't considered until the first snow and I'm out there scraping in delight.

The grader blade or bucket either one leaves a small amount of snow on the blacktop.....just enough to make it slick as owl poop. I like to NEVER got back UP the damn drive after plowing my way down it.....ahahahahaaa.....slid all over the place. I finally walked up to the house, got a couple buckets of wood ashes and carried them down to the worst place, applied to the road, and managed to get the tractor back up to the shop. Live and learn.....ahahhaaaaaa

 

Yeah, if it ain't one damn thing it's another LOL!

 

I don't mind the dirt and gravel gouges, start early enough in the day and the dirt will gather enough heat from the sun to melt the snow.

 

I have a rotary brush that I use, it attaches to the quick mount in the front of my Kubota front end loader, works a trick until the base turns to ice, then I have to bring out the Caterpillar Dozer and make several passes to break up the ice with it's tracks, then brush it all out again! This only happens a few times, as long as I run the brush, I get very little gravel displacement to deal with! For heavier work, it's the Cat Skidder with a rake attachment on the bull blade, this also works very well, but you gotta back drag after, otherwise you got a rough road. Need to add a drag roller to toe behind, that would fix the problem!

 

Learned that from my Grandad, he would plow the wet snow in the SW Mo. farm land with a team of large plow horses when to do so with a tractor would have just got him stuck.

Do it at the right time and way and he would get a good nitrogen boost and a smooth smooth planting field with a two week jump on planting time.

Very important when you had a section of land to work.

 

My solution was much simpler, I moved to UCLA (Upper Corner of Lower Alabama); what's snow?

 

My solution........... God Put it there and God will take it away

 

When I was a teenager, my Dad's solution was a teenager with a scoop shovel. At least the driveway was less than 300 feet.

 

Ashes from the wood stove on snow and ice helps with traction and with sun it melts much faster

 

I think Dad would've had fun with those edge tamers on an angled grader blade. I can just picture carefully laid out tracks in the slush that'd freeze to guide the blade on colder day snow clearing operations.

My parents had the same issue with the gravel on the driveway in Michigan. After a few years of trying to clear the driveway and pushing snow and gravel around with the tractor blade they just started driving through the snow. This also helped tame the mud in the Spring. If it was really drifted I'd take the tractor out and shove snow backwards with the blade angled. By dropping the blade and then raising it 6" or so I could clear a path so any car that didn't lose momentum on the hill could make it to the house. All the family cars were four wheel drive or front wheel drive by the time I left home.

 

Very creative but how does it do in deep snow?