After the lake landing the other day, I decided to try a pond landing. My main concern was snow depth, too deep and I may not get back out without a lot of work. I flew it low and dragged one wheel to get an idea before committing, it looked good so in I went. Getting back out was easy, I just followed my landing tracks.

And I thought your plane was pretty at JC. That is a neat picture, thanks for posting them.

Nice bird, Just a $.02 opinion.
With the snow and the big tires, It's not if it's to deep to take off!, it's if it's to deep to land, If it gets up to 1/2 way on those big tires and you don't make a couple of drag trips to land in, when you get slowed down and use up all the lift on your wings it can sometimes disconnect the bulb in the light on top of the rudder?
GT

As M6RV6 says, it's about how deep the snow is and figure snow drifts too. It's also about the crust, if any, and slowing down enough to break through either the surface crust or a crust layer beneath. Anything that slows down the plane abruptly can put it on its back. Keep a hand on the throttle and go full stick back with full throttle if snow drag ramps up rapidly . . . the prop wash over the elevator will help pin the tail down - - and hopefully will be enough. If snow drag increases really fast, you may no longer have the option of going full throttle to abort a landing.

There's an airport south of Minden, NV, "Alpine County, CA" that's not maintained in the winter. After a light snow its fun to fly down there to slip 'n slide. But a few planes have been trucked out of there over the years. Sometimes it's hard to tell how shallow the snow isn't.

bumper

Good advice, I already had a situation earlier this year where I landed in a sloped stubblefield I'd been in maybe 20 or 30 times earlier in the fall. I eyeballed the stubble sticking up out of the snow, and deemed it "not that deep". It wasn't, maybe 6" or 7" at most, but the freeze/thaw cycles had left a crust that was pretty damn grabby. It was like landing in Elmers Glue! The slow down was dramatic, but the tail didn't get light, the takeoff was a different story; I accelerated...and then didn't anymore, even though on a 15% downgrade, not until I got in my landing tracks. The "drop one wheel in" technique, kinda like sticking one toe in a hot tub, seems to give me some feeling for what it is going to be like before getting all slowed down and committed. I drag one wheel until its solid, then go around and eyeball the track, and then make up my mind. To tell the truth I am more concerned with breaking through the ice, as these ponds and reserviors are stream and spring fed, and not consistantly frozen. I did that once as a kid in Michigan, no thanks! I also shot a few landings today on two other large reserviors (Chesterfield and Blackfoot) and each time I played around quite a bit before slowing down, no surprises yet. I also have been experimenting with lifting one wheel on takeoff, kind of like a float plane, so far that doesn't seem worth the effort.