snow tires on ice

snow tires do not, in fact, work on ice. this i found out while i was leaving the parking lot in the mountain yesterday.

i saw this driver get stuck up a small slope and thought, idiot, didn't come equipped. i reversed to get out another way but turned out i either had to go all the way around the whole resort or go back to that small slope. no worries - i have 4 snow tires! so up i went. and got stuck. tried to let the car go backward a bit and get a grip and momentum but it was veering close to the other cars. i went out to see if there was too much snow stopping the tires but no. i tried again and again, with and without the ice setting, or whatever it is. nothing worked. i was just getting closer and closer to the other cars. thought i'd put on the chains and see how that worked but when i opened the boot, i realised i'd left them in the garage. typical. i was stuck. so i thought i'd try to flag down a passing car and hope someone would be kind enough to stop. after passing me by, and thus avoiding getting stuck themselves, 2 cars stopped and 3 people helped me push the car. the problem, it turned out, was that the car was sitting on ice. snow tires of not, the car would never have budged on its own. i was really glad those people helped me, and really ashamed to have thought the other car was driven by an idiot. i should have helped him out.