Chains don't always help, either.
I have to go down a steep hill, then up another to get in and out of the town road. They only plow to my house, which adds another 3 1/2 miles every time I want to get out. The first winter I had my 3301 I thought I would ride up and down the hills a few times so that the chains would break up the ice. It was just after dark when I headed slowly down the hill but seemed to be picking up speed. I took my foot off the pedal and realized that although I was picking up speed the wheels weren't turning. OOPS! I dropped the winch on back, then the bucket, managed to get stopped, then used them to control my path to the bottom of the hill.
I was an hour and a half getting back to the top; I would get a run, get about halfway up, then start sliding backward again.
I got in trouble with my pickup in a rainstorm on the same hill... I came off the main road slowly, shining my headlights down to check the hill. It seemed OK so I proceeded down... as soon as my rears hit the ice underneath it was like being on a big water slide. I went down the hill with no way to get under control, and as I started up the other side realized my only choice was to try to keep going. I got 1/2 way to the top when the traction control kicked in... I went back down that hill completely out of control, the tires were going 30 mph forward, I was going backward at about the same speed, knowing there's a big beaver pond right next to the road at the bottom. I tried every trick that I knew including turning the wheels trying to get it into the snowbank... no luck, yet now I don't even know which way the wheels are turned. Sure enough just as I got to the bottom the front tires caught, spinning the truck crossways in the road. I stopped with the rears on the edge of the road directly over the culvert, and about 8 feet of air between my rear bumper and the beaver dam. Using my hilift as a winch I pulled myself forward 3 feet onto my tire chains, and proceeded up the hill again.
I have a similar truck story...
The approach to Whites Hill, on top of which we live, is constricted at the bottom
by an old stone RR trestle set about 15 degrees off line to the hill.
It is blind corner save for an occasionally obscured mirror placed at the base of the hill looking towards a hidden sideroad.
I was returning from town with my daughter in my old 2nd gen Cummins Dodge 2500 4wd
and headed up the hill on a warm, snowy day and got about 3/4 up the first pitch when the wheels began spinning on the newly churned slushy snow.
Of course, the truck came to a stop and began sliding back down towards the angled stone train trestle.
Knowing the brakes were useless I concentrated on keeping the truck straight in the middle of the narrow road.
As we slid towards the bottom, I noticed, approaching the trestle from the side I had just come from,
was my neighbor who would be under the trestle the at same time as us.
The town had sanded at the bottom of the hill earlier so there was some traction there and, simultaneously,
as my wheels slid onto the sanded section, I tapped the brakes long enough to turn the truck so it would roll straight back beneath the trestle
and my neighbor stopped and immediately reversed back and off to the side .
As we rolled by him with about 3 feet between us, we smiled and waved at each other like it was just a Sunday drive!
I have to give my neighbor credit for his quick assessment of the situation and rapid action that definitely prevented a tail to nose collision.
I also have slid another Dodge, a 1500 2wd back that time, down that same pitch
but managed to turn it enough to wedge between the 6 foot snow banks and stop.
It took an hour of shoveling with only my hands to get it cleared enough to mount the rear wheel chains,
straighten out to get back up the hill and home.
. 
