Hitting deep snow

Coming home tonight I hit quite a bit of deep, hard snow, packed from drifting. I was afraid I might damage the plastic under the front bumper, but it seems OK. Has anyone here damaged their car from crashing drifts?

I believe I was actually airborne for a bit at one point.

Doubt you hurt anything in fresh snow drift, that is less than 6 hours old.  Just look out for the hard chunks hidden under the surface.  Hitting a day old drift can crack the belly pan, just as packed wheel wells that are allowed to freeze hard can crack the inner fenders if you exercise the suspension.  You may have been floating on the belly pan, in which case don't stop.  If you stop the car will settle into the drift making it quite difficult to extract.  All wheel drive only helps when the tires are in contact with the ground, not just a drift.

I've damaged the underside of my front bumper a bit mainly from dips in the damn road.
Except once when i was forced to drive over a bloody bucket on the freeway which had fallen from some workers truck!! It did a little bit of damage - scratching the underside and slightly bending the right side of one of those little holes/vents thats at the bottom of the bumper.... it sucks :/

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ORIGINAL: TorsenTaxi

Doubt you hurt anything in fresh snow drift, that is less than 6 hours old. Just look out for the hard chunks hidden under the surface. Hitting a day old drift can crack the belly pan, just as packed wheel wells that are allowed to freeze hard can crack the inner fenders if you exercise the suspension. You may have been floating on the belly pan, in which case don't stop. If you stop the car will settle into the drift making it quite difficult to extract. All wheel drive only helps when the tires are in contact with the ground, not just a drift.

By belly pan, you are meaning the piece that is bumper colored and extends under the car, or are you meaning farther back?

The lower engine cover.  You know the plastic cover that's held on with the screws that sometime drop on the ground, then spend 20 minutes looking for it, I've seen the covers cracked and busted.  Still takes a good hit in cold weather to accomplish though.

snow is fine dont worry about it as long as it is fluffy.  Used to be a subie owner and the winters in Vermont were pretty fun.  However, my old subaru did have a little more clearence.  I took my A4 B7 out in fa fresh 4  inches of snow the other day and things were fine.  However, when i got back on the highway is was shaking like crazy at 60mph +, but that was just from the snow piled up in the wheels.  Just a little warning.  So, snow if fine but deer carcases are a different story.  I hit a deer going 90mph on the highway in indiana, no time to react, so i just strattled it as much as i could, no damage whatsoever to the front bumper.  But the undercarrage was another story.  I broke the plastic plating cover the vitals underneath, found that out about 3 weeks later when i brought it to the shop for routine maintance, and they found, hair, guts, bones and antlers underthere from the deer.  everything still run perfect!  haha...