Winter Works

[cuttin edge]

You'll probably be going to the Bathurst area. The club here leaves the groomers at our asphalt plant. It's about an hour from there to the edge of the Bathurst club. It's about a 22 hour round trip with the groomer. Should be lots of good conditions for sleds. Peak season now, lots of snow, and milder conditions.

 

[JaredV]

You guys mind if I add my fun here? I spent the day opening up a logging mainline and plowed the deepest snow for me yet. Climbing the hill it started at nothing and a few miles up it was around 3 feet deep. I did fine without chains up to about 18 inches, then threw a set on the front. Made it to the top of the hill and got stuck turning around so put the others on. I was wishing for a wing! I spent a lot of time with the saddle in the far hole pushing the berm up and back. I was able to plow it down in layers. First pass was about 18 inches, then about 6 inches at a time from there until I found the road. I was smart enough to start the berm as far away as I could on the downhill side and then worked as much as I could that way since there's only so much room on the ditch side and had a decent amount of road surface when I was done. Supposed to finish Monday down the other side so a lowboy can move equipment through the woods instead of on the freeway.

 

[cuttin edge]

Beautiful here today. Just above freezing. Calling for snow on Wednesday. Some fresh stuff to eat the old stuff away.

 

[John C.]

Well we got about 10 inches some places a foot of snow, it came down quick about 6-7 hours, was out all last night for the clean up, my partner on the other shift bent the wing tower, he was going to fast and the wing caught the edge of the pavement coming out off a back road, top of the tower is moved ahead about 6 inches, the mount that connects to the goose neck that the tower bolts to is twisted and both braces are bent, he was not wearing his seat belt and hit the little combat window face first, he may have whip lash, so not sure what the department will do, not sure if you can straighten it with that bad of a twist, may need to be replaced, you can still use the wing but you have to be careful the front of the wing wants to dig in all the time, the banjo bolt will also have to be replaced it has stretched and the wing flops back and forth when winging, drives me crazy, no reason to be in such a big hurry, that's when stuff breaks.

How is the operator? Machines are relatively easy to fix. People, not so much.

 

[20/80]

How is the operator? Machines are relatively easy to fix. People, not so much.

He's doing good, back on the go

 

[20/80]

Beautiful here today. Just above freezing. Calling for snow on Wednesday. Some fresh stuff to eat the old stuff away.

Just got back from Bathurst, had a great trip and seen some nice lodges and trails, alittle sore, put on 400miles in a day and a half, yes weather moving in for Tues night into Wed, a Nor'Easter they call it, giving 40cm/16 inches of snow and strong winds for here and 5 mm rain, now that's if the forecast holds, the back roads are all soft again, isn't that nice to look forward to, lol

 

[cuttin edge]

Just got back from Bathurst, had a great trip and seen some nice lodges and trails, alittle sore, put on 400miles in a day and a half, yes weather moving in for Tues night into Wed, a Nor'Easter they call it, giving 40cm/16 inches of snow and strong winds for here and 5 mm rain, now that's if the forecast holds, the back roads are all soft again, isn't that nice to look forward to, lol

Glad you had a good trip. I've snowmobiled right into April before, but the water crossings get a bit iffy. The sun yesterday and today is really chewing up the snow, and the fresh stuff coming will really take the old stuff away in a hurry. My nephew is heading to Yarmouth Monday to work. He runs a drill rig for blasting.

 

[ovrszd]

You guys mind if I add my fun here? I spent the day opening up a logging mainline and plowed the deepest snow for me yet. Climbing the hill it started at nothing and a few miles up it was around 3 feet deep. I did fine without chains up to about 18 inches, then threw a set on the front. Made it to the top of the hill and got stuck turning around so put the others on. I was wishing for a wing! I spent a lot of time with the saddle in the far hole pushing the berm up and back. I was able to plow it down in layers. First pass was about 18 inches, then about 6 inches at a time from there until I found the road. I was smart enough to start the berm as far away as I could on the downhill side and then worked as much as I could that way since there's only so much room on the ditch side and had a decent amount of road surface when I was done. Supposed to finish Monday down the other side so a lowboy can move equipment through the woods instead of on the freeway.

Great pics!!!!!

 

[20/80]

Forecast has changed this morning for here, 10inchs of snow with 10mm rain on the back side and strong winds, going to be a mess and heavy pushing on soft mud roads, going to have lots of fixing to do this spring when the grading starts.

 

[20/80]

You guys mind if I add my fun here? I spent the day opening up a logging mainline and plowed the deepest snow for me yet. Climbing the hill it started at nothing and a few miles up it was around 3 feet deep. I did fine without chains up to about 18 inches, then threw a set on the front. Made it to the top of the hill and got stuck turning around so put the others on. I was wishing for a wing! I spent a lot of time with the saddle in the far hole pushing the berm up and back. I was able to plow it down in layers. First pass was about 18 inches, then about 6 inches at a time from there until I found the road. I was smart enough to start the berm as far away as I could on the downhill side and then worked as much as I could that way since there's only so much room on the ditch side and had a decent amount of road surface when I was done. Supposed to finish Monday down the other side so a lowboy can move equipment through the woods instead of on the freeway.

Thanks for sharing, nice pics, wondering why you don't have chains on the rears when you started out for pushing snow, thinking it would be hard on the front drives with the only chains on at the time, I always start at the rears first, I'm thinking the front was the easiest to put on at the time, lol

 

[JaredV]

Thanks for sharing, nice pics, wondering why you don't have chains on the rears when you started out for pushing snow, thinking it would be hard on the front drives with the only chains on at the time, I always start at the rears first, I'm thinking the front was the easiest to put on at the time, lol

Yep, definitely easier! I didn't know how deep it would get and often I can get by without chains if it's no more than a foot. The tires are about done and have enough little cuts in them that they make pretty good snow tires. I figure the front end isn't pulling any harder with chains in snow than it is on packed gravel and it steers better as well so I always start there. I can't pull real hard with the front without it wanting to spin and hop even with chains on so I don't think it's gonna hurt anything. The logging roads we work on are rarely straight for more than a couple hundred yards and are usually corner after corner across a steep sidehill so I like to know it's going to come around when I turn the wheel. I was parked about 18 miles from where I was plowing so I wasn't going to leave them on for the drive back and forth and then I only had about 5 hours that I needed them so I wasn't going to put the full set on if I could avoid it. I ran with just the fronts again today. The snow was pretty wet so it would have been nice to have them all but the lowboy was breathing down my neck so I didn't want to take the time to put them on. Is that enough excuses to avoid throwing chains? Ha!

 

[ovrszd]

I've only put on a chain out on the road once. That was when a side link broke and I lost one. If I think I need chains, I chain up before leaving the shed. Actually, I'm so wussy and OCD that if I think I need chains, I chain up the day before.

 

[JaredV]

We don't get a lot of snow and even less down low so I can easily be plowing up the hill to a logging job first thing in the morning and grading the mainline down at the bottom the rest of the day. The one time I chained up the day before, it didn't amount to near as much as the weatherman thought.

 

[cuttin edge]

Did some cleanup the last 2 days. Not a lot of snow, maybe 10 inches, but it lasted all day Wednesday, and into Thursday morning. Real slippery too, nothing frozen anymore. Today was a beauty day, great to see the sun getting higher in the sky. Hit 10c or 50F for a while. Be making ready for pave in no time.

 

[20/80]

Not much out of the storm they were calling for, 2-3 inches at most with rain on the back side, real slop, inland got about 6inches with rain also, was hard scraping those roads where they were so very soft, nothing left here now of the hyped up storm, spring on the horizon, grading season will come early I'm hoping, just need some warmer sunny day's with some wind to dry things up, but sometimes April can be dirty.

 

[Cat 140M AWD]

We got about 2 inches of snow with lots of wind so roads were bad but to make matters worse it rained and took frost out of roads so under the snow was soft ground very challenging to move this last snow now it’s starting to melt so working at night when it’s froze to push bad spots back in the ditch hopefully keep the roads from turning to crap while we melt snow hopefully the end is near washed my 2016 140M3 yesterday afternoon got a whole skid loader bucket of crap off the blade been a long winter definitely ready for spring

 

[20/80]

We have another system heading in Thurs evening, calling for 10" snow with some rain on the back side, should be real nice trying to plow that off the gravel roads, the roads are soft as heck with the warm temps during the day's, they are calling for another system on Sunday dropping another 6" of snow on the back roads, hard on the nerves

 

[cuttin edge]

We have another system heading in Thurs evening, calling for 10" snow with some rain on the back side, should be real nice trying to plow that off the gravel roads, the roads are soft as heck with the warm temps during the day's, they are calling for another system on Sunday dropping another 6" of snow on the back roads, hard on the nerves

Long ranger shows snow all next week. I got a call yesterday wondering if I was going to be around. I guess there are 5 going away this weekend, so I guess my to do list will be expanding.

 

[ovrszd]

We continue to miss wet weather predictions. My roads are pretty solid for this time of year. Wanting to start getting my rock on. But we get a misty, nasty wet day about every three. Just enough to make the roads sloppy for a few hours. Of course, when the weekend comes everything is great. And the Quarry is closed.....

 

[20/80]

I find what they forecast for a area and what we get can be very different at times, this time of year though snow won't last, temps get to warm during the day, depending on the amount of snow we get it may not be worth plowing the back roads off especially when they are very soft.