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over flow

K

KRC

Member
I went out to my property to break a trail yesterday to my property were I am going to build a cabin. It's about 35 miles from the nearest road. But 32 miles are on the susitna and yetna rivers here in alaska.
We took snowmachines and the rivers were good going but when I got to my lake we started off across and ran into overflow. My snowtrac restoration project was born out of the idea to use it to haul materials to build the cabin. When we hit the overflow the first thing that came to mind was how does the snowtrac handle the overflow. Some of the snowmachines got stuck and we had to slosh around in about a foot of it to get them out.
Just curious if anyone has had any experience with overflow and their snowtrac or any track rigs for that matter. Will they claw there way through it or are they as vulnerable as a snowmachine.
 
KRC said:
I went out to my property to break a trail yesterday to my property were I am going to build a cabin. It's about 35 miles from the nearest road. But 32 miles are on the susitna and yetna rivers here in alaska.
We took snowmachines and the rivers were good going but when I got to my lake we started off across and ran into overflow. My snowtrac restoration project was born out of the idea to use it to haul materials to build the cabin. When we hit the overflow the first thing that came to mind was how does the snowtrac handle the overflow. Some of the snowmachines got stuck and we had to slosh around in about a foot of it to get them out.
Just curious if anyone has had any experience with overflow and their snowtrac or any track rigs for that matter. Will they claw there way through it or are they as vulnerable as a snowmachine.
Click to expand...

Well if it is in the -40 stuff when we get most overflow here in the interior, the water will freeze to any metal that it comes in contact with almost instantly. You haven't had that kind of cold down that far South this year have you?

On the snowmachine, the best thing we have used is the plastic "Ski Skins", they don't allow the bottom of the metal skis to freeze solid with ice and stop the machine so if you can keep on the throtal, it will scoot accross it if the bottom doesn't fall out from open water under the snow.

Are you getting "Overflow" from the extreme cold freezing down the ice level and forcing the moving water underneat to push up to the top and flow under the snow? Or is it standing melted water on top of the lake ice, under the snow?

Big difference on how the air temp's affect the track rigs and snowmachines... If it is really cold, the track rigs will get a major load of ice building on the unit and start to bog down just like the snowmachines. If not, they handle the slush a bit better because of the steel cleats on most of them dig a bit better than the rubber tracks, unless you run accross open water under the snow.... Then "Abandon Ship" comes to mind...
 
I think the over flow is from the weight of the snow on the lake ice and the water is coming up through the cracks and just saturating the snow base. No we haven't had quite those temps maybe -20 out where my property is. The day we went out it was in the high 20's. Have you ever had your snowtrac in overflow? If so, how did it perform. I think I am going to make a trail around the lake to get to my property so I don't have to deal with the lake at all until I know it has a good solid trail across it. Snow machines are hard enough to deal with in overflow let alone a snowtrac!
 
Last year with my Bombardier J5, I went in bad slush. It was Ok on the lake. The slush was on the river. There were about 2 feet of hard snow in our trail. I went by 75 feet of slush and just passed to be on a hard snow place. I thought that I was ok to go but after a 100 feet I went on another slushy area and like the first time I just went thru. (I went to a third slushy zone).
I decided to go back but in the middle of the second zone I just stuck there. The bottom of the J5 was jacked on the snow and the tracks were running free and with full of ice like bananas. I had melted water and snow just under my knees. It was -22F. Anything was freezing fast. I had to chain a tree accros my tracks and it worked. I was near the end of the slushy area and climbed on hard trail. If my J5 be a feet more higher I would be ok. It seems to had been and easy task but I went there for 5 hours de-icing and walking to cut a tree and... The slush was under the snow and we could not saw it.

This year I have a winch and an "ice hogger" (drill).

If I could go by land, I would do so but it is not possible.
We never know when there will be slush there. It can append often in winter season it's why we do "trail" on the lake and the river so the snow is harder and we are ok when it is only some amount of water (little slush). But when there is plenty of water under the snow, the belly of the machine stay on the trail and we have no traction.
(Hope you can understand my poor english writting)
 
KRC said:
I think the over flow is from the weight of the snow on the lake ice and the water is coming up through the cracks and just saturating the snow base. No we haven't had quite those temps maybe -20 out where my property is. The day we went out it was in the high 20's. Have you ever had your snowtrac in overflow? If so, how did it perform. I think I am going to make a trail around the lake to get to my property so I don't have to deal with the lake at all until I know it has a good solid trail across it. Snow machines are hard enough to deal with in overflow let alone a snowtrac!
Click to expand...

Having an alt. trail around the lake isn't a bad idea to start with. Some of the Lakes in Alaska have warm water springs (ok "cold" water springs on most of them) and the moving water under the ice eats it out, when there is a lot of snow on top of the ice, it insulates it from the cold and allows the lake ice to melt and creates a hole/thin ice that you can't see until it is too late.

About 7 years ago, I was playing with my 110 Nodwell out behind the house on a creek that we have here and it was about -20 or colder outside. I was driving it over the creek and there was about two feet of water under the snow that you couldn't see, the slush covered everything and froze as soon as it hit the air and stuck to the frame, wheel rims and cleats. I was pretty close to the house and got turned around and back up the hill to the yard... Had I been out further, it would have locked everything up with the ice and been a mess. As it was, I had to beat the ice off and melt the rest with torpedo heater.

As soon as I had broken the snow cover off the standing water, the place looked like a steam bath with the warmer water hitting the cold air.
 
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