Heavy Snow, Four Wheel Drive (Or Lack Thereof) and The Kindness of Strangers

There have been much snow these past few weeks in the northern USA. Both Jia Nin (in Minnesota) and I (in Michigan) have been liberally sprinkled with 20-30 cm on some days. I have a Honda CR-V in Ann Arbor with four wheel drive so I was able to drive around OK as long as I was careful. Jia Nin's car, however, only has front wheel drive and no amount of electronic traction control would allow it to climb an icy slope. We were trying to get out of her condo complex and the exit was an uphill climb. Not a particularly steep slope, but the patchy ice that has formed due to partially melted snow (from vehicles driving over it) refreezing (it was below freezing after all) made it very difficult. We almost made it 3/4 of the way up the slope, but a pickup truck towing a trailer made a wide turn into the complex, blocking the entrance and forcing us to stop. Darn. Since we lost momentum, the car couldn't make it up the rest of the way so I started to drive backwards down the slope to get to a flatter section so that we can accelerate back up. No luck. A garbage truck came in and I was forced to back down again. But since it was much wider than the pickup, I edged closer to the side of the road to give it more room; right into a snow bank. #$%^&*! No damage but we were stuck. Wheels couldn't get traction and the "rock back and forth" method of getting out of snow wasn't working since the car was on a slope. We got shovels from the condo complex and started to dig the car out. Thankfully, two gentlemen who were driving by in a pickup stopped to help. They were thinking of towing the car out but the Volkswagen GTI is not what you would call a sturdy car. Attaching a tow rope to the bumper is more likely to tear it off than move the car (this example comes to mind!). Instead, they made short work of the snow behind the car and helped push the car sideways to prevent it from sliding back into the snow bank as I backed down (did I mention that the slope was also slightly curved?). We're out! We thanked the two very, very helpful gentlemen and went back home to wait for the snow plow to clear the road some more. Thanks again guys! P.S. Yes, we made it out after the road was plowed around noon.