Adventures in Snowcatting

NorthernRedneck · Jan 17, 2008

Spotted earlier today out playing in the hills. I was out all night on a 14 hour/80 mile one way run breaking open trail with the drag in tow. I was out finishing the trail where I had to go on the rescue mission the other day to haul the Lamtrac out of a creek. When I got to the creek last night around 5am, I thought I would be able to cross where we normally cross but the water levels are so high this year around here that the creek that normally only has just a trickle of water in it now has over 3 feet. I could have made it across but I figured "Why bother! The snowmobiles won't be able to make it across there even if I can." So, I turned around, backtracked about 10 miles to where I turned in off the highway, then had to walk the machine down the shoulder of the road for about 10 miles before I joined up to where I could access the other side of the creek and continue on. It was slow going last night as I was breaking trail most of the night in 3-4 feet of snow while pulling a drag. The snow was the "sugary type" where you sink to the bottom and can't get much traction. I had to make 7 snow bridges to get across creeks which took a bit of time. I couldn't imagine trying to do what I do without a blade on my machine. We used to do it though.

NorthernRedneck · Jan 19, 2008

I just noticed something. We have the following brands represented in this thread showing snowcats in actual use(Bombardier, Lamtrac, Tucker, Thiokol) but I haven't seen any action shots representing Kristi yet. Could it be that there aren't any??? BobP????? Common, you're holding out on us..............show us show pictures of your Kristi in action in the snow and make a beleiver out of us. Common man, even I've got faith that that Krusti of yours can do a slight bit more than tear down fences and drive around in parking lots. Where's your pics???

Snowcat Operations · Jan 19, 2008

OUCH! BOBP that sounded like a challenge to me!

NorthernRedneck · Jan 19, 2008

Bobcat · Jan 19, 2008

You have me at a slight disadvantage since I'm on the road (constantly), but I'll see what I can do.

All of this playing around in the powder of the Rockies over the last few weeks has been driving me nuts without my Kristi.

irate:

NorthernRedneck · Jan 19, 2008

So Bob............after sampling that cadillac of the snow(Tucker), how are you going to find it going back to your little pinto of the parking lot(Kristi)? :poke:

Just messin with ya.......looking forward to seeing some action shots of it in the snow just to see what they are actually capable of. :beer:

ALLEN PARSONS · Jan 21, 2008

Cat country.
Sorry no great cat photos this weekend. Ten feet now with five inches of power snow. It was was great.
Here are a few shots of the stuff we were playing in.

Bobcat · Jan 21, 2008

Friggin fabulous!

Deerlope · Jan 21, 2008

Subperb pic's. Sure would make me feel very small standing there. :applause:

NorthernRedneck · Jan 21, 2008

WOW! I could just picture opening up a copy National Geographic and seeing those pictures in there. Absolutely amazing!

MNoutdoors RIP · Jan 21, 2008

You know those are the kind of places most people dream of seeing. and some days we just live life to fast. we all have to slow down some times and really enjoy what has been put forth for us to see, experience and savor.
Man those are some award winning shots. :tiphat:

Logger1965 · Jan 21, 2008

srexecmark, where are you at in WA?? Fellow Tucker owner here in WA., I'm over by Spokane. Nice looking cat !!

ALLEN PARSONS · Jan 22, 2008

How far off road do you adventure with your cats?
When I mean off road, I mean wayyyyyyy off road .If you have a brake down it would mean that you find some way to get your cat out because if you leave it tell spring you will not be able to drive to it. I have been very relucdent to go off road or trail because of that danger.

fogtender · Jan 22, 2008

ALLEN PARSONS said:
How far off road do you adventure with your cats?
When I mean off road, I mean wayyyyyyy off road .If you have a brake down it would mean that you find some way to get your cat out because if you leave it tell spring you will not be able to drive to it. I have been very relucdent to go off road or trail because of that danger.

When we head out to our cabin, it is a fourty mile run one way (Just North of Mt. McKinley Park), there is a couple of other guys on the forum that go out that way too, so we are pretty much on our own if something goes wrong. Mostly we fix what breaks on the trail, so we do a lot of maintance before we leave to avoid it later... Once we leave town, that is it, there is no access to where we are going except the trail we are on.

Roughwoods has a "halfway" small cabin by mine, but has a homestead another thirty some odd miles farther out so I would say he has the longest run once this new trail is completed, normally he has a really long boat ride in the summer to get there that takes the long way around.... so about 70+- miles one way.

I took a dozer out to my cabin a few years ago and it took two days to make the trip at about -20 for the average temp on the trip, having the backhoe on it made it pretty slow going since the hoe made the front end pretty light. But that really wasn't a snowcat since we didn't really have a lot of snow that year....per say...

In the photo below, were are crossing an area that had a burn go though there a few years earlier, it is about 27 miles into the trip.

Below that is a photo taken during that trip where an owl hit the snow and left it's wing impression where it took out some critter for dinner that stuck it's head up...

dkmclean · Jan 22, 2008

Groomin trails around town.To cold to go fishin.
I figured you groomer guy would get a kick out of my drag, Don't laugh-it works.

NorthernRedneck · Jan 22, 2008

Looks like its doing a decent job. How long to the trails hold up after you drag them with it?

mkntrakes · Jan 23, 2008

some picks from today's adventure here in colorful colorado

srexecmark · Jan 23, 2008

dkmclean said:
Groomin trails around town.To cold to go fishin.
I figured you groomer guy would get a kick out of my drag, Don't laugh-it works.

Hey! I want to make one of those. What did you make that out of?

Mark

Snowcat Pat · Jan 23, 2008

Stunning shots mkntrakes. That takes me back a few years. Site access on steep sidehills can you spell a-d-r-e-n-a-l-i-n-e! My heart jumped just looking at those pics.
-Pat

mtntopper · Jan 23, 2008

Great pics mkntrakes!!!!! How far did you have to cut the steep side hill trail? Did you slip any as you worked the side hill? Are you sure you were even on the access road to the site.....or making a new one.... :yum:

mkntrakes · Jan 23, 2008

mtntopper said:
Great pics mkntrakes!!!!! How far did you have to cut the steep side hill trail? Did you slip any as you worked the side hill? Are you sure you were even on the access road to the site.....or making a new one....

The side hill goes four about six miles took me about three hours to cut it in i have plowed this trail several times near as i can figure i was about ten feet above the actual road and about eight feet to the left of the road. Never slipped but you never want to put the cat in a situation where it can when plowing side hills like this is you want to go very slow and back up often to see if there are any stress cracks in the snow if there are you need to back up and move more snow from the top of the slop to the bottom to carry the weight of the machine. It is also very very important to have a understanding of of what your machine is capable of and understanding the snow you are working with i always dig a hole with the machine in a level area then drive the machine on the edge of the hole to see how well the snow will support it you want to ease on and back up to see what the edge of the snow is doing this will give you a idea how much snow it will take to support the machine.

Snowcat Operations · Jan 24, 2008

Excellent pictures! Did the slope ever cut out after you had come back? The snow layers look solid (or lack of layers visable). Well at least nothing screaming avalanche!

dkmclean · Jan 24, 2008

Mark; I used 2-2"x8"x20'chanel beams,cut 6'off each for cross brace,6'x2" pipe - 1'x6'x.25"plate for the back +cutting edge off a grader. Welded it together and bolted on the cutting edge.

Brian; Two passes to fill in the holes then 4 or 5 times through the winter keeps them smooth.

NorthernRedneck · Jan 26, 2008

Here's the damage report for yesterday's outing. I took the machine out in the morning to do a short section of trail then handed it off to another operator to continue on doing all our local trails. He was almost back to the parking spot when he looked in the mirror and saw a cleet flopping around on the left rear track. The track belt now has a three inch tear in it where the cleet fastens to it. I repaired this today installing a spare cleet and re-inforcing the track belt in the area where it is torn by doubling up a spare chunk of belt under the problem area.

The bottom picture is a sprocket on the left rear track that's not looking too healthy and is going to be changed very soon when we can find enough time to assemble a new track assembly. We've got a complete set of new tracks/cleets that we have to throw on and we'll be changing the sprocket at the same time.

garygaboury · Jan 26, 2008

"Heres the damage report for yesterdays outing"

That may be one of the best quotes for snowmobile grooming I've heard in a while. It seems every time our cat goes out it needs something when it gets back. Knock on wood nothing major so far this year.

Gary

mtntopper · Jan 26, 2008

groomerguyNWO said:
Here's the damage report for yesterday's outing. I took the machine out in the morning to do a short section of trail then handed it off to another operator to continue on doing all our local trails. He was almost back to the parking spot when he looked in the mirror and saw a cleet flopping around on the left rear track. The track belt now has a three inch tear in it where the cleet fastens to it. I repaired this today installing a spare cleet and re-inforcing the track belt in the area where it is torn by doubling up a spare chunk of belt under the problem area.

The bottom picture is a sprocket on the left rear track that's not looking too healthy and is going to be changed very soon when we can find enough time to assemble a new track assembly. We've got a complete set of new tracks/cleets that we have to throw on and we'll be changing the sprocket at the same time.

Are you telling us the "Lametrac" is getting lamer? I can normaly hear and feel a broken cleat before I ever see it. The click, click and chunk of snow in the air over the cab is a dead give away of a track problem. :yum:

NorthernRedneck · Jan 26, 2008

You know..........I'm gettin really fed up with all the mechanical problems we've had this year. Unreal.........but it's our fault though. I'm surprised it's taken this long for one of those cleets to break. They are all in really bad shape. We've got new belts and cleets sitting here ready to assemble and put on but no-one seems to be too interested in doing it. They were supposed to e done last summer, then the plan got changed to doing it in the fall before the snow hit, then it got changed to doing it after we're done opening the trails. Now, it's changed to doing the job in the spring.

mtntopper · Jan 26, 2008

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that sprocket is not going to last till spring if you use the Lametrack cat .... :yum:

Your maintenance schedule would work for me but the cat would not..... :yum:

mkntrakes · Jan 26, 2008

groomerguyNWO said:
You know..........I'm gettin really fed up with all the mechanical problems we've had this year. Unreal.........but it's our fault though. I'm surprised it's taken this long for one of those cleets to break. They are all in really bad shape. We've got new belts and cleets sitting here ready to assemble and put on but no-one seems to be too interested in doing it. They were supposed to e done last summer, then the plan got changed to doing it in the fall before the snow hit, then it got changed to doing it after we're done opening the trails. Now, it's changed to doing the job in the spring.

So i'm guessing that you have lots of volunteers to ride the trails you groom but no one can take the time to pull maintenance on the machine?so im curious how far you groom from a road where some could pick you up? i hate to walk and figure every hour of run time creates a half hour of maintenance time

NorthernRedneck · Jan 26, 2008

mtntopper.........
That's the beauty part about the Lamtrac or tucker 4 track setup. All I have to do is keep it in 4x4 and it'll keep chugging along unlike those THIO-thingy's, krusti mobile's, and snot tracs. I'd like to see any other two tracked machine try to move more than 50 ft with a sprocket that looked liked that. Would end up looking like a dog chaising its tail in the parking lot going round and round in circles while I just went crusing on by! Hell, I could probably take both back tracks right off and still outperform a Krusti in the snow! :2gunsfiri

I agree though that the sprocket's gotta come off very soon as the track cleets keep slipping and jumping the teeth on the sprocket.

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