Supposedly was "a bit lower than one might want to be" and encountered a "windshear or downdraft" and balled her onto and slightly through the ice/snow. Apparently a flight of two, the other not as affected by the "downdraft" landed safely on a nearby road and came to the rescue. The guy walked away but now needs to haul the sled of the ice. Hopefully it'll stay cold up there. He was from the BOI area and didn't do any interviews, all the info. was per an Elmore county sheriff.
I think someone was playing a little to haaaard! Hope he gets it fixed soon so I can go with him next time!

G3,

Do you have any pictures of the incident?

DEGJR

No but it made the Boise news channel 7. The shot they had that I saw was from the right. Pretty much right side up, slightly nose low (no shit, right?) tailwheel about five feet out of the snow, right wing pitched down and folded back against the fuselage. Couldn't see the left to well but the wing seemed to be pretty much intact. They made it sound as though he got a bit wet at least on the lower extremeties. I couldn't tell if the gear had been wiped off and he had penetrated the ice a bit or if he was in deep snow. Nor could I see if he had skis or not. I am ASS-U-ME-ing that due to the fact that his shred partner landed on a road that he didn't but who knows. If it quits blowing 90 here tomorrow I'll go up to rubberneck.

G3,

Maybe he was testing the ice to see if he could land there. When the test results were in they indicated landing not advisable! I tried that once on some snow. I wasn't sure how deep it was, but I thought I would dip my toes in and see what would happen. I carried a little more air speed than usual and was ready on the throttle. It turns out the snow had a hard crust on top that I broke through. The instant the wheels touched the snow it startted to drag me in, and the nose started pitching down fast. I pushed and pulled (throttle and yoke) as fast as I could. I was loaded really light, so the plane hopped back out of the snow. Don't think I will try that again with such deep snow and small tires.

When you touch down on muddy ground with your big tires, does your plane want to pitch over onto it's nose? What do you do to keep shinny side up?

DEGJR

While I'm sure that there is enough mud somewhere to drag me in I haven't been in it, yet. When we had the 8.50's on I just stayed clear when muddy. Now that we have the 31's I can land in places that are hard to walk in when you get out with no problem.
I have done it in the snow though on both the 8.50's and the 31's. Both times I rolled the place first and it looked good but when I actually settled in it got really grabby. Power and full up elevator, no problem. The problem lies in coming to a stop with half throttle. The first time we allowed it to stop, mistake. I was out rocking the wings to finish the taxi and make tracks for the takeoff. The second time I realized what was happening and went to full power, kept the plane going, and made some circuits in the tracks until I could get it going fast enough to pop the second notch of flap and hang it on the VG's.