IMPossible
New member
Hello All! I've spent many hours lurking through these forums and really appreciate everyone that contributes to it!
We seem to be in somewhat of a pickle. We recently got a cabin property that is high up (9800 feet) in Utah. We're somewhat experienced to long snowmobile journeys because of previous cabin that we had, however, the path to this cabin is filled with crazy drifts and powder and it's proven to be difficult to get to on snowmobiles. This messes up a lot of plans because if we can't easily get there in the winter, there will be less reason to build a cabin up there considering there's snow on the ground 6+ months out of the year.
After doing as much research as I can on here, I personally believe that a snowcat will be able to get through it quite easily, but I wanted to gather some opinions from people that have a lot more experience than I do.
I will attach some files of the various paths that we can take on Google Earth. The below figures are from google earth.
Path 1: 5.8 miles, Max slope of 16.8%. This follows the highest point on the mountain basically the whole way up and so is the longest and gets a lot of wind and drifts.
Path 2: 4 Miles, max slope of 38.3%. We haven't taken this way yet on snowmobiles, but it is in a valley/canyon and so theoretically will have less crazy drifts.
Path 3: 2.5 Miles, max slope of 39%. This is just a shortcut of path 2 that goes up a small valley on the side of the mountain
Path 4: 1.6 Miles, max slope of 53.2%. This is just a short(er)cut that goes up a steeper small valley.
All paths are ungroomed and untraveled. We break trail on all of them. Paths 1 and 2 follow a dirt road while 3 and 4 break off the dirt road to go up little side valleys.
We're looking to only spend as much as we need to on a snowcat that can transport a lot of gear and people up one of these trails (preferably the shorter ones). We also don't want to buy one that is immediately going to break down or need a lot of work. We're willing to put in the work for maintenance etc. but would prefer it to run well initially. I thought a plow would be helpful if not necessary for all the drifts that we've run into as well as clearing the property a little bit once we have the cabin. I found one snowcat that's still available nearby.
It's a 1974 sv-301 SkiDozer with a passenger cabin and blade. It has 1965 hours on it.
Here is the link to that: https://classifieds.ksl.com/listing/62777400
We don't necessarily need to get a snowcat for this winter as its almost over, however if the above cat is a really good deal or a cat that meets our criteria doesn't go up for sale very often we might be able to figure something out.
If we don't get a snowcat this winter we would like to figure out how to get a snowcat out on the property to verify that it can make it easily. Any ideas on how to get someone up there with a snowcat to try it out or how to rent one?
Thank you in advance to anyone willing to give us some advice!
For those that have google earth pro downloaded to their computer, right click one of the paths and click on "Show Elevation Profile" to see the elevation.
(As a side note, we picked up an IMP several months ago, but it broke down on the property our first trip out, it still runs, just won't drive, hence our name IMPossible. Lucky us. We will likely grab it in late May or June when the snow melts and sell it to upgrade to a bettery snowcat)
We seem to be in somewhat of a pickle. We recently got a cabin property that is high up (9800 feet) in Utah. We're somewhat experienced to long snowmobile journeys because of previous cabin that we had, however, the path to this cabin is filled with crazy drifts and powder and it's proven to be difficult to get to on snowmobiles. This messes up a lot of plans because if we can't easily get there in the winter, there will be less reason to build a cabin up there considering there's snow on the ground 6+ months out of the year.
After doing as much research as I can on here, I personally believe that a snowcat will be able to get through it quite easily, but I wanted to gather some opinions from people that have a lot more experience than I do.
I will attach some files of the various paths that we can take on Google Earth. The below figures are from google earth.
Path 1: 5.8 miles, Max slope of 16.8%. This follows the highest point on the mountain basically the whole way up and so is the longest and gets a lot of wind and drifts.
Path 2: 4 Miles, max slope of 38.3%. We haven't taken this way yet on snowmobiles, but it is in a valley/canyon and so theoretically will have less crazy drifts.
Path 3: 2.5 Miles, max slope of 39%. This is just a shortcut of path 2 that goes up a small valley on the side of the mountain
Path 4: 1.6 Miles, max slope of 53.2%. This is just a short(er)cut that goes up a steeper small valley.
All paths are ungroomed and untraveled. We break trail on all of them. Paths 1 and 2 follow a dirt road while 3 and 4 break off the dirt road to go up little side valleys.
We're looking to only spend as much as we need to on a snowcat that can transport a lot of gear and people up one of these trails (preferably the shorter ones). We also don't want to buy one that is immediately going to break down or need a lot of work. We're willing to put in the work for maintenance etc. but would prefer it to run well initially. I thought a plow would be helpful if not necessary for all the drifts that we've run into as well as clearing the property a little bit once we have the cabin. I found one snowcat that's still available nearby.
It's a 1974 sv-301 SkiDozer with a passenger cabin and blade. It has 1965 hours on it.
Here is the link to that: https://classifieds.ksl.com/listing/62777400
We don't necessarily need to get a snowcat for this winter as its almost over, however if the above cat is a really good deal or a cat that meets our criteria doesn't go up for sale very often we might be able to figure something out.
If we don't get a snowcat this winter we would like to figure out how to get a snowcat out on the property to verify that it can make it easily. Any ideas on how to get someone up there with a snowcat to try it out or how to rent one?
Thank you in advance to anyone willing to give us some advice!
For those that have google earth pro downloaded to their computer, right click one of the paths and click on "Show Elevation Profile" to see the elevation.
(As a side note, we picked up an IMP several months ago, but it broke down on the property our first trip out, it still runs, just won't drive, hence our name IMPossible. Lucky us. We will likely grab it in late May or June when the snow melts and sell it to upgrade to a bettery snowcat)