TheGreatAbyss wrote
Question to the Forum: How much ground clearance do you really need to make it to the ski hills and back?
About this much.

Anything else, it's all the same shit nowadays. The make and model is almost irrelevant, all cars are built mechanically very similar with very little ground clearance to improve fuel economy. I'm not saying to go out and buy a Fiat, I'm just saying that if ground clearance is a concern, well, It's really just what works best for you.
AWD is really just a marketing game on the vehicle manufacturers part. There's a differential between the front and back wheels in an AWD (that's how they stay in AWD all the time) so once you are really in a slippery situation and the diff spins out you aren't really that much further ahead than with a regular front wheel drive vehicle than gets better mileage anyway. I've seen AWD vehicle get stuck, and there's still only one wheel spinning. 4 wheel drive that you shift into manually when you start slipping creates a solid mechanical link between the front and back wheels, and will be the only thing that's really going to save you if you really do get into some serious shit.
Honestly, Tires are the biggest thing here. If you're looking for a small car, get yourself a Honda or a Nissan, and put snow tires on it for the winter months. I have a Nissan Sentra (and a 4wd truck) with just 2 Cooper Weathermasters on the front and that thing will shred the gnar. I've driven it on a lot of powder days this season, as well as commute every day on rough roads all winter long, and have not had any issues. Meanwhile my mom has an AWD Chevy Traverse, and i've driven it a lot but personally I think it handles horribly on snow compared to my little car. Partly because she runs all season tires. My dad has an AWD Subaru Legacy, and it honestly doesn't handle any better than the Nissan. I actually think the snow tires on the 2wd Nissan still handle better than the Legacy with whatever tires he has on it.
Basically, no standard vehicle is "designed" to handle in conditions other than pavement, unless you mod the heck out of them
I'll take boilerplate ice over wet snow any day