I used the beast as intended yesterday. I went up for my first day of snowboarding, driving up and back in what was pretty much a blizzard.
My commute is 3 miles of surface streets then 10 miles of 4 lane highway and finally 13 miles of 2 lane, windy mountain road. In the morning there was 1-2" of slushy snow in the valley turning to 6" of powder roughly 5 miles from the end. I left the house in 2WD with the hubs locked and shifted into 4WD-H about 7 miles from the end. During the day it snowed an additional 12"+ of snow turning the parking lot into a total SNAFU. Audis and Subarus were getting stuck left and right but the Jimmy was UNSTOPPABLE. Seriously... 12" of snow is nothing for a rig like this.
The road down the canyon was very, very slippery so it was 4WD-H and L1 the whole way down. The combo of 33" tires and whatever gears are in my truck holds it at 2000 rpm/15mph going downhill in L1.
I'm very happy with the truck in the snow. I want to upgrade the headlights and I need better windshield washer squirters but performance in the snow was outstanding. I was also happily surprised by how smoothly the truck shifted in and out of 4WD-H at 25mph. Very slick!
Here are a couple of photos from the bottom of the commute @ 4500 feet. There was a lot more snow at the mountain @ 8500 feet.
And a shot from the ski hill!