By Ron Kilgore on Unrecorded Date: Edit

I live in the mountains of Colorado. We are well known for dry "powder" snow. I have been thinking of getting an 8 x 8 with tracks for winter mountain trips in the high country. Will the 8 x 8 with tracks operate in extremely light and dry snow? Anyone have direct experience?

By RipTaylor on Unrecorded Date: Edit

I had a Conquest with SuperTracks that did pretty well at 8000 ft on the Uncompahgre Plateau. With five adults on board and going up hill I found myself using all the power she could muster, but still made it. The new Avenger has 5 or 6 more HP, so that should help.

I also had bolt-on ice cleats, which can help or hurt depending on conditions and operator in that it is easier to dig yourself in (and high center) if you are not careful, but sometime the extra traction is welcome.

All in all it worked pretty well and I never got stuck. The lighter you are the better as you are less likely to high center, especially in powder snow. Like most machines, you will need to develop a feel for what is happening and when to apply more power, and when to ease off a bit.

Clint at MCS ARGO Sales in Grand Junction has a lot of first hand snow experience with these machines plus feed back from many individual and commercial customers. He also had a good video with a lot of snow action segments that would help you decide.

I would suggest having a good winch and cable extension, plus snowshoes and basic survival gear for any winter outing in the back country. Traveling with someone else (on another machine) would also be advisable.

For several people and gear, the ARGO would be hard to beat for the price. For only two people and limited gear, Terratrack.com has a nice little enclosed track machine. Ski-Doo also has a new enclosed two seater side-by-side snowmobile. The Ski-Doo is only for snow, while the TerraTrack can be used on other terrain, but still is not an ATV nor is it amphibious.

Good Luck, Rip

By Ron Kilgore on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Thanks for the insight. That helps a lot. I have a family of 6 so the other choices would not work for me. Thanks

By David Keeso (Argomag) on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Ron, I dont' know exactly how the dry snow is classified but in my experiance (if it helps any) i have found that the dry snow i have at the cottage really only shows up when its super cold, when i have run through that stuff, i find that the old style tracks used by ARGO (the big heavy ones, plastic) tend to be hard to turn in the very cold dry stuff- I had some trouble a couple times this last winter in the bush where the snow was deep, uphill, and very dry, almost granular- the tracks were really dragging me down and i actually had to run back and forth over the area to make some tracks and then take a big run at it- I find with my argo being only 18 hp, as soon as you touch the brakes a little, you loose a lot of power and if your going up something, and with tracks, you need every bit of power you can get- hopefully this helps some-

By Fred Sowerwine, Montana's Max dealer (Fred4dot) on Unrecorded Date: Edit

David, Sounds to me like you need to get over to that Max dealer close to you and try out a tracked machine. I'll tell you that it isn't just power that you need - you need flotation and traction; power will just let you spin your tracks and get you bottomed out. We have very dry powder here in Montana most of the time and an 18 HP machine with tracks will keep going better in some conditions than a 25 HP model. When the snow is hard and firm, the 25 HP is more fun, but it is much easier to bottom out the machine with more horses. For "cold smoke" powder, Even the Max could use a wider track as a loaded 0.96 PSI on the ground can be too much.

Ron, I think if you need to haul six people, you need to get an Argo Avenger and talk to that fellow in Canada about his 20" wide tracks (remember that it is PSI on the ground that determines if you can stay up on the snow - the lower the better). If Colorado snow is anything like Montana snow, you will be disappointed in the performance of anything else. I'd suggest a Max IV 900 or 950T, but they will only haul four people and in the snow the load should be limited to 750 pounds for adequate performance. In any machine, in deep dry powder,the lighter the load, the better the performance. I know of three people who had Argo eights with super tracks here in Montana/Wyoming who sold them as failures as snow machines. If you have snow with consistency, the regular Argo machines will probably work fine; it all depends on your snow conditions.

There have been lots of discussions on this board about tracked machines and many Argo owners have commented. Several were going to get back with reports and have failed to do so. To me that means their machines didn't measure up to their expectations. Many are not as honest as David Kesso is about reporting his problems. Your best bet is to get a dealer to demonstrate a machine in the conditions you want to use it in. I try real hard to have my customers know first hand what a machine will or will not do. Don't forget that there is a learning curve on getting the most out of any skid steer. As a driver's experience increases his machine gets more capable (just because you can't do it the first time you try does not mean it cannot be done).

By dt5428 on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Hey Fred give me a little education.I live in Michigan and have lived from the Detroit area all the way up to the Marquette area and have snow falls from 30 to over 200 inches a year and from what I have seen the snow changes with the temp.I realize you are at a higher elevation but from when I have hunted in Colorado the snow there changed with temps.I guess my point is snow is snow depending on temp.I own a Argo Conquest with the supertracks and my father and I ice fish and there is times on the lake we there is so much slush from the warm days that the Argo is the only thing that will go out on the lake including two people and gear while hauling the heavy ice shanty.We have tested it in deep powder in several temps and yes you can get it stuck but it boils down to taking you time.You know from what I have posted that I like most of the features on the Max 950T althought there is lots of room for improvement.But for you to say that an Argo with super tracks will not go through the snow I find that very hard to believe.I guess Bigwolf and I are going to have to get together for a weekend up at our cabin this winter and run the Max 950t and the Argo Conquest throught the same stuff and see what happens.He may out perform me but I know I will be warmer as I have the full canvas with the heater and the engine heat.

Later,Dan

By dt5428 on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Oh Fred one other thing nice website for your dealership.But I did notice that you only have two pictures of a Max in the snow one near the fence in a couple inches of snow and the other pulling a sled on a nice groomed trail.Do you have any pictures of yourself cruising along on top of some nice deep dry Montana snow with a couple of people in the machine.

By Motown's (Bigwolf) on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Hello Dan,

Unfortunately I have not taken the deep plunge to buy a new set of tracks for the Max IV yet. If I made a trip up north with you guys during the winter months, I would probably have to beg for a tow through the deep snow!

And you are correct, I would also probably freeze to death in the cold. I have yet to buy and install a wind shield and cover with side curtains. The rear engine in the Max will not provide any added heat for the cock pit area either.

A couple of things that I would like to mention in the powder type snow discussion is; humidity in the air also plays a malor role in the type of snow fall that you see in different areas of North America. You tend to see a drier power type snow at the higher elevations versus the lower elevations. When you live around large bodies of water such as the Great Lakes area we tend to see a heavier type of snow because of the higher humidity in the air (lake affect snow). However, when the temperature drops out of sight at or below zero, which does happen quite often here and in the northern states and Canada and Alaska, the snow fall seems to be more of a powder type.

Also originally being from the U.P. of Michigan, we saw snow falls in excess of ten feet during some seasons, and quite often it fell several feet at a time, and at times it was several feet of powder type snow. There are very few machines that can even operate in that depth of powder snow. I can recall seeing only very wide tracked snow cats or huge trucks with ten foot high snow blowers on the front that could make it through the deep stuff. I can also recall seeing snow mobiles getting buried and nearly lost in the snow drifts, when they tried to go through. I have buried and nearly lost a snow mobile a few times in snow drifts up there.

It is my feeling that when you get powder snow much deeper than two to four feet, none of our machines will perform very well, irregarless of what brand it is, or what the weight distribution or "PSI" is. At that point, a person will probably wish they had 4x8 sheets of plywood strapped to the bottom of their feet.

By Fred Sowerwine, Montana's Max dealer (Fred4dot) on Unrecorded Date: Edit

dt5428, I'm no scientist so what I say could very well be wrong. It is my opinion that snow consistency is based on water content and temperature when the snow is formed. In dry cold areas there is very little moisture in the snow.

Our snow can be so light and fluffy that a skier can ski in mid-thigh deep powder and the snow will not support a skier. The deepest powder I have had a max in was about 5 feet. The machine sinks in about eight inches and leaves an obvious belly track. Inclines are tough and I'd guess 20 degrees would be the maximum. In the spring when the snow firms up, the Max will ride within an inch of the top and. As the snow gets moved by the wind, it firms up and if the temperature gets above freezing, a crust will form on the top, but the bottom stays loose. Snow in the trees that doesn't get any wind or sun will stay loose all winter. We have terrible avalanche problems because of the steepness of the mountains and the looseness of the snow (snow with moisture also caused avalanches as it is the different layers that cause instability). All the ski hills have avalanche control details after every big snow.

It is hard to explain, but all snow is not created alike. Snow in the Rockies is dry and fluffy and not much can go in the deep stuff.

No, I don't have any good snow pictures. I'll have to work on that.