Skidding with a snowmobile

I've been thinking about what you said regarding the raised runners. I doubt I'll pull the trigger on a timber sled or UMHW sled this season due to the costs, however I am wondering which would be better for my needs.

Hauling timber out of my friend's property is on ungroomed trails, however I would also use the sled to gain access to groomed trails within the national forest that are only accessible during the winter (you can hike the trails year-round, however wheeled vehicles are verboten during the non-snow months). No one hauls out any timber from those areas due to the amount of work it would take so that opens up a lot more area to me for scrounging. I'm wondering which style sled (raised runners on the timber sled versus flat footprint with the UMHW sled) would do less damage to the groomed trails. The club that maintains the trails around here puts a lot of effort into them and I don't want to damage their hard work (or cause issues with either them or the forest service). The UMHW sled would be easier to get to the trail head (I could trailer everything a couple miles down the road with the truck) whereas with the timber sled, I would probably end up towing that with the snowmobile right from home (I can gain access to the trails from home but it's kind of a circuitous route before I would get to where I could harvest any trees).

Since I'm not in a rush to get either, it's something to mull over. I've run the Otter sled up there before but that's a lot of trips which is why I'm considering a sled I could use to haul out longer lengths of timber.

 

I remember Rope posted pictures of some of the wood he got. Don't know what type of terrain he was on but I thought the sled he was using was cool.

 

Yeah, I knew based on the sled you said you had, that it had a really long track and the wider skis.

Do some boondocking. Then reassess

 

As far as what will be better for the snowmobile trails, the all flat jet sled type of sled will simply act as a groomer. The ones with only a couple of skis to hold all the weight will push any non packed snow to the side of the skis.

 

If hauling heavy logs in snow is the main goal, and speed isn't as important as traction... you might consider an ATV on tracks. We had one for 9 years and it's traction abilities are impressive. It was a Suzuki King Quad 500 on Camoplast (Tatou) all season tracks. Never got it stuck. We sold it in 2018 and it's still going strong today. You can find lots of YT vids showing the capabilities of the Camo tracks on any brand ATV. Side by sides as well. Might be worth the look. Here's the set-up I used.









That sled/skis set-up under the logs, slid along easily... especially hauling out on a main packed trail.

 

Great points. I guess I could drop in and talk to the club staff and see if they had any issues one way or the other. They run a lot of guided tours over the same trails I would be using so as long as I wasn't causing any damage to the trails, I don't see why they would have any problems.

Why do I envision this experiment ending up with the participants in the hospital??

Great idea, and I was going to get tracks years ago, back when I had my side by side, however in NH, the only way to run an ATV/UTV with tracks on official trails is to have it registered as a snowmobile, which is a PITA when it comes time to register it for the non-snow months. Wasn't worth it in the long run so I just use the snowmobile.

 

It can be easier, but the ski'd sled will certainly rut up a snowmobile trail from all the weight on the smaller surface area.

 

Unfortunately, the only video I could find with a timber sled (on skis) was taken on an ungroomed trail with what looks like fresh powder, so the skis are definitely pushing up a lot of snow.

Tow Behind TIMBER SLED for (Small Scale Logging) - YouTube

Of course, another thought is that between all the snowmobile tours, hot-doggers, and novice riders, the trails get torn up pretty well just from all the inexperienced riders out there. In the big picture, if I do decide to upgrade my sled (to either the timber sled or UMHW sled), I would be doing less damage than the novice riders.

 

Yeah, we had the machine registered as both ATV and snowmobile, in Maine.

 

Yeah, check with the club. It's better to ask first.

I can recall a few years ago, on a solo trip from my cottage to the next "big" town. Nobody on the trail, late at night. This was pre 55 mph at night speed limit days. I saw the groomer, coming my direction, knew I'd have perfectly smooth trails all the way to that town, and this trail usually gets a lot of traffic, aka moguls.

Well, what was supposed to be a great smooth trip ended o not so. Two guys on sport quads literally shredded and rutted up the trail so bad that they made the trail nearly unrideable. Ruts everywhere that would pull your skis all over and off the trail. It was horrible.

I guarantee that if the groomer would've seen what those guys did to his freshly groomed trail, one of those 1x a week groomed inter trail system connectors, he'd have killed them. I know that those quads were illegally on the snowmobile trails, and what they did was even more criminal.
Snowmobiling is big tourism money, you don't mess with that.

 

She smoked it around the yahd didn't she. We don't have any pics though. Musta been on your phone. I did find one of us solvin' all the world's problems upta the cabin ...

 

It's still something to think about. I didn't know you could register the same machine as both (the last time I had talked to a conservation officer I was told it was one or the other, so I'll have to look into that). When I'm out on the trails this season (if we ever get enough snow), I'll have to take a look at how much timber I could realistically process out of the locations I can only access during the winter and weigh that against the cost of tracks or a new tow-behind sled.

And it seems to get worse every year. Last year was ridiculous with the amount of people flocking to the outdoors due to the pandemic and there were snowmobile accidents almost every day (in addition to ATV/UTV wrecks and mountain search and rescues for idiots that were woefully unprepared). I wouldn't even go on the trails during a weekend or holiday. Plus, so many people get suckered into the snowmobile advertisements about mountain sleds, so they purchase those before researching that in NH, the majority of trail systems have no off-trail riding and many go through private property. These knuckleheads still ride wherever they want so landowners close down access for everyone.

 

I don't have to skid much with the sled as I do wood in the early spring, but when I do I just use the pelican 75 sled I use for trapping. Especially wolf trapping as the waxed sand and steel is so dern heavy. It has teflon skids in place that last several hundred miles. Buck logs at 64 inches for 4 rounds at 16. They run 199 bucks here with the tow bar and cover included. No sales tax.

 

Thanks for reminding me about Rope's posts. I went back and looked at some of his older posts and he was using the UMHW sleds. Looks like most of what he was towing over was flat terrain, however he has pictures of towing the sleds in different depths of snow and they seem to leave a marginal footprint at best (which is what I would be looking for). He has some impressive loads on those sleds, so perhaps one of those will be a future purchase.

Sled ideas | Page 2 | Firewood Hoarders Club

Somehow this thread morphed into a 'hauling' thread versus a 'skidding' thread, which I was trying to avoid (since the hauling thread already existed). Regardless, I am enjoying reading everyone's posts and getting their thoughts and input. As lame as this winter is currently going with the lack of snow (as I'm watching it rain on January 1st), this is giving me more time to mull over different options for the future instead of rushing into a decision.

I did find a decent video showing someone skidding logs in the snow with a portable winch using the same skidding cone I have. Going back to my OP, if I can't get to the logs with the snowmobile to skid them out that way, then I would be doing something similar to what he did in the video only using a capstan winch. Same end result with the intent to skid the logs to a main trail where I can then haul them out behind either the snowmobile or the four-wheeler.

Holzfforma g660 and Lewis Chainsaw Winch Skidding Logs in Deep Snow - YouTube

 

So apparently the timber sleds are very common overseas (called timmerdoning skoter) however they are just not marketed in the US for some reason. Lots of decent images out there so perhaps I'll try to build one over the next year.

Lynx 5900 timmerdoning i vedkörning - YouTube