[Starchmill]

Well, I went up to Maine for 3 nights with the Mountaineer. The temps were predicted to be hi-30's, low's-16. I put water in the rig and brought antifreeze along to rewinterize before I towed it home. There was a campground open year-round up there and I had made reservations. Actually, the Mountaineer performed GREAT in these cold conditions and I had no problem with the water system in the cold. Friday morning it was only 11 degrees outside, but I was toasty all night and took a hot shower in the morning. Before I put water in the rig on Tuesday, I had trapped antifreeze in the low point drains on both water lines and also the fresh water tank. That ended up working great and even though these lines were exposed to the outside air for the 4 days, they never froze and I was able to just take the caps off to drain the system. BUT, there were a few things I didn't plan on that I thought I would share with those of you who might take the rig out in the winter. First of all, we ended up driving up thru Franconia Notch and they had had a storm the day before and the roads up there were still snow covered and slippery/slushy. The driving was a bit tricky, but the worse part was the fact that all the slush/ice from the road ended up all over the rig and froze up all the outside locks and the front stabilizers. We pulled into our destination and I realized that I couldnt' get into the outside hatches because all the locks were frozen up. At this point, it was getting dark, we were in a one horse town that were noplace was open to buy lock deicer, ect. So we had to make do. I couldn't even unhitch the truck from the TT cause the bar to take the dualcam's off was in the underbelly storage that was frozen shut. SO luckily, the folks we were having Thanksgiving with, had room next to the house to park the rig. I was able to park it there and leave it hooked right up to the truck so no stabilizers, ect were needed then. We ran an extention cord to the house and all was well. So with that problem solved, the next few days went fine... until the propane ran out friday morning. I just winterized the unit right away but next time I will definately bring an extra propane tank along just in case. So if I take my rig out in the winter again, I will
1) Bring extra propane.
2) Carry lock de-icer
3) Check the road conditions for where you're going. I had checked the Weather for the area and knew they had a storm 1 1/2 days earlier, but I thought they would have the roads clear by then. And we took a different route at the last minute to meet family for lunch in northern NH. Otherwise, the roads I planned to use were clear.
4) Bring extra antifreeze. (more than what you need to rewinterize) because since we didn't use the campground, I had no way do dump the tanks and had to drive home with the tanks full and no heat in the unit. I added several gallons of antifreeze to the gray and black tanks to hopefully lower the freezing point a bit. This worked fine and I was able to go to our local rv dealer and dump the tanks when I got home.
5) If it snows while you're away, and you have slide toppers, pull in the slides every few hours to dump the new snow before it builds up. 4 inches of snow fell right off the bedroom slide but we needed to climb on the roof and brush off the livingroom slide to pull it in.
6) Be willing to go with the flow and leave time for changes in plans.
Most of all, have a great time. Marcia