Stuck in Deep snow in Sugar Bush-

[Maplesapper]

How are you guys getting in and out of the sugar bush with a load of Sap when there is still lots of snow ?

Typically we are hauling 150- 200 gallons at a time in a small landscape trailer and get stuck a lot in the snow.

Our bush is fairly uneven and steep in the forests of Parry Sound- no flat farm gig here.

ATV's with tracks ?? Compact Tractor with chains??

Uneven , hilly terrain, whats the best for the snow.

Anyone McGiver a funky homemande trailer

Thanks

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Nothing beats a team of horses and a sled. Once the road is broke out they can pull an enormous load. They will also learn your routine and know where to stop on their own as you are gathering.

[SWEETER CREATIONS]

Doug you could loan them out this year with all this ice. Probably make as much as selling maple.

[Maplesapper]

Nothing beats a team of horses and a sled. Once the road is broke out they can pull an enormous load. They will also learn your routine and know where to stop on their own as you are gathering.


I'm a city kid during the week.
Not sure they will fit in the back of the truck for the ride home every weekend.

[Radnagel]

My suggestion to you would be to build yourself some kind of sled. Find a tank and build the sled around it. The sled will spread the weight across the snow and the low center of gravity won't make it tippy crossing the hills. make sure you add some kind of wear bars under the sled if pulling it across any type of concrete or asphalt. Then pull it around with a snowmobile. Just don't go to big with the tank and the wider the sled the better. hope this helps.

[Chicopee Sap Shack]

4 wheeler with tracks is an animal in the snow. I haul a 500 lb snowmobile trail groomer with mine full of snow and cutting it has some real grunt!!


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[Maplesapper]

4 wheeler with tracks is an animal in the snow. I haul a 500 lb snowmobile trail groomer with mine full of snow and cutting it has some real grunt!!


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What type of wheeler and track setup are you running Chicopee ?
I have a Polaris 500, but it doesn't seem to like tracks, they overheat unless you are in an 800 or more; so I've heard.

[Maplesapper]

My suggestion to you would be to build yourself some kind of sled. Find a tank and build the sled around it. The sled will spread the weight across the snow and the low center of gravity won't make it tippy crossing the hills. make sure you add some kind of wear bars under the sled if pulling it across any type of concrete or asphalt. Then pull it around with a snowmobile. Just don't go to big with the tank and the wider the sled the better. hope this helps.

So your vote is snowmobile ? What do you use when the snow is gone and the ground is soupy.
We have haul thru a wet ravine bottom. Ended up having to use two dump tanks and a trash pump to get the sap out to a road.
We have a wood sled with runners that we use during the setup.
Have a flat bottom sap tank, but it all weighs too mush for the atv.
As soon as you torque the load, the machine squats, spins the tires into the snow, and viola- You're stuck

[morningstarfarm]

One word answer...tubing

[Maplesapper]

One word answer...tubing

Unfortunately Tubing is no option.

We tap our neighbour's property. Shiny buckets look tradition, tubing looks like we are trespassing lol

We don't have the slope for tubing nor the available power for vacuums.

Think of our sugar bush as a bowl, and the sugar house is 1500 yards from the edge of the bowl.

[Radnagel]

yes snowmobile in snow with the sled. by your post sounds like you already have an atv. pull the same sled with the atv the weight is spread across the ground keep the tank under 150 gallons and getting stuck shouldn't be an issue. make sure you have replaceable wear bars under the sled seen some sleds that even used old snowmobile skis. keep transfer of sap easy by adding a boat bilage pump attached to a hose. a small lawn mower battery will easily last you all day.

[Maplesapper]

Hey Rad;

I run a Polaris 500, but it sinks in the swampy ground as the snow melts. We tap basically a downslope, and it gets too wet after a good melt and the water collects at the bottom of the hill.
ATV hangs up in the loose snow, or just cannot pull up the hill as it sits down under load.

[Thad Blaisdell]

run a black pipe from the bottom of the down slope and a small pump. Collect all the way down and pump it back. The black pipe would be easy enough to roll up at end of season. Saves a ton of headaches.

[ennismaple]

Our bush roads get plowed out before we tap and we gather with a 55HP tractor with trig chains pulling a 525 gallon tank on a wagon. It still struggles up some of the icy hills until we get down to bare dirt.

[madmapler]

I find that a bulldozer works quite nicely in all conditions.:)

[Rhino]

One of the best sap gathering machines are small tractors with a set of ARPS half tracks mounted on them. Years ago we started with a case 530 with half tracks on it and now we added 2 Ford 8n tractors that both have half tracks also. The half tracks are somewhat hard to find but Ford 8n's or 9n's are all over the place and the price for them really fell flat because of the 4x4 compact/sub compact tractor market. The 8n's i bought just lately are in great condition and i paid $2000 for one and $1700 for the other. At these prices you won't lose money at resale unless you destroy them. A set of half tracks for both tractors, i have $1100 bucks invested in them. I feel lucky that i found 2 sets in the last 5 months. If you ever have a chance to get a set of half tracks jump on them fast and then look for a small tractor to mount them on. You could always put chains on the tractor and use that, but you are still going to have issues getting stuck, but for $2000 or less it's still better then beating up a $7000 ATV. You can go on youtube and see some ARPS in action. Pretty much you cant stop them. I also have a John Deere crawler we used to use, but with the slow ground speed and rough ride the tractors are much better. We pull 300 gal. to 425 gal tanks with no problems no matter if its snow or mud. Also are nice to go tramping around between the trees and beating down the snow before we tap to stiffen up walking/collecting trails all over the woods where we bag and bucket tap. We do plan in the next year and the next one after to go more with lines and less bags/buckets so i will be selling the two Ford 8n's with the tracks in the next 2 seasons if anyone wants to start thinking about them. I have to keep the Case 530 with tracks because it was my father-in-laws tractor.

[adk1]

I like the ATF and tracks

[1arch]

we have a JD compact track loader that will crawl through about anything, mud or snow. Although we got the job done in mud season the ruts were quite deep. Without thorough cleaning, frozen tracks in the morning can be a challenge.
We started pumping rather than tearing up the sugar bush.