Deep snow just kicked my ......

[Marvel26]

Well I just tried to "make a track" with my sled so I can haul my actual sled.....it turned into an afternoon of digging large holes in the snow.

May I call on the sappers who deal with a lot of snow for any tips and/or tricks? I'm not completely inexperienced but today was a rude awakening. I have 3 barrels in the woods with 60ish taps running into them and I would prefer not lug upwards of 120 gal of sap out of the woods by hand. Not that I wouldn't....just would prefer to use modern technology to my advantage.

My first thought is to go in the morning when the snow is harder..

[Pibster]

Time for a snowmobile. I've been slowing building a trail thru the snow with my ATV. Once I get the bike thru a spot, it's easy to drive on the next day.

[BreezyHill]

Go out when the snow is cold and pack it down a little and get the trail broken. Warm snow is very sticky and will bury a sled quick if you cant get momentum.


After you have a track then you can go thru in the day time and really pack it down and let the sun get you a nice trail that will be hard when it freezes up.

I groom snow trails...night time runs mostly and let the cold setup the trail.

Good luck!

Ben

[arcticair]

I live in northern Ontario , so yup lots of snow 4 ft . We walk our trail system a couple of times on snow shoes , wait a week . We then run the Alpine snowmachine on it a couple times widening the trail as we go , wait a week . Then i run a homemade drag on the trails about 5 passes , wait a week . trails are really hard now and can walk with boots on . Then we start making passes with the drag cutting the trail and pushing ( plowing ) the snow off the trail . We are down to about a foot of snow on the trail , we could probably run the atv s on them easily . We still have to wait another month before we even think about tapping our trees , but it gives us easy and simple access to all our trees .

[maplestudent]

I'm going to assume when you say 'sled' you mean a side and not a snow mobile. I've been making trails with snowshoes for several weeks, going over them a number of times to pack them down. Trails that I started a few weeks ago are fairly hard and I can walk on them without the snowshoes, while carrying a backpack full of tools and supplies and I rarely sink through. Trails that I started this past weekend and used a lot are pretty close to those I started weeks ago. But others that I haven't used as much, I'm finding that I sink in a lot without the snowshoes. I think they need to be packed down more.

Now, if by 'sled' you meant snow mobile, well, never mind.

[TerryEspo]

Sled.

Slang word, lol.

Means Snow Machine or Snowmobile,,, not side by side.

Hope that clears things up.

Terry

[Marvel26]

Sorry for the slang, I'm a Nova Scotian turned New Brunswicker. TerryEspo is correct, the first "sled" meant snowmobile, the "actual sled" meant sled :-)

I ran the trail about a dozen times with just the snowmobile....found a couple of holes but after I had a track all was well. Then I hooked up the sled and got in just fine.....coming out was where I hit the wall. I have one spot that has a 5 foot dip and a turn at the top...this is where I spent most of my afternoon as the snow was 4 feet deep there.

With the change from Standard time to Daylight Savings time messing up my sleep I went through the issues in my head last night and I think it may be best to walk the sap out until the snow comes down a bunch. Normally we would only have 1-2 feet of snow on the ground which a fourwheeler can go through quite easily.....this year has been a record breaking winter for snow and cold.

[maplestudent]

no problem. I noticed sled was used in what appeared to be two different ways and that's why I qualified my post by "assuming" you meant an actual sled.

[Maplesapper]

Marvel;

We are uphill both ways to the sugar shack; and most of the trees reside in a low lying area that turns swampy come peeper season.
Collection takes place about 700 yards from the shack.
We run a long track sled early morning for collection while the snow is crisp.

As soon as the corn snow shows up, we pull in out on toboggans, or push it out with a trash pump and a pile of pipe.
This year the snow has made the setup for the trash pump a non starter.

[Marvel26]

ok....i'll bite....what is "Corn snow" :-)

I think it is the granular/pebbly snow that comes this time of year but I will admit that I don't see the correlation with corn.

[DaveB]

Corn snow is the snow that is more like chipped ice instead of being fluffy. I spent three hours clearing a path to my pump in the woods so I wouldn't have to go through the snow every time and it is turning morning "corny" now that the days are warmer - we even had some rain yesterday which helps.

[beaglebriar]

I took completely different approach. Tractor with loader and back blade now I can walk anywhere I need to and to hell with the snow!

[DaveB]

I took completely different approach. Tractor with loader and back blade now I can walk anywhere I need to and to hell with the snow!

I can do that on the roads through the woods but straight line between my sugar house and the pump is through the woods - too many branches, stumps and logs to walk over to clear a path with machinery. The time I spent is probably a wash with the extra time I'd spend getting there, but at least I can just walk down there!

[larboc]

Well I just tried to "make a track" with my sled so I can haul my actual sled.....it turned into an afternoon of digging large holes in the snow.

May I call on the sappers who deal with a lot of snow for any tips and/or tricks? I'm not completely inexperienced but today was a rude awakening. I have 3 barrels in the woods with 60ish taps running into them and I would prefer not lug upwards of 120 gal of sap out of the woods by hand. Not that I wouldn't....just would prefer to use modern technology to my advantage.

My first thought is to go in the morning when the snow is harder..

Lighter sled, go out earlier. This time of year the snow warms up and will never really pack down. I will snowmobile as close as I can and then use snowshoes and one of those black plastic pull behind sleds. I can carry 20 gallons at a time of culligan bottles. Capped so they won't spill.

[Marvel26]

Thanks all! We received another 15" yesterday and 6 more is supposed to be on its way tonight.....will there ever be an end to the snow?