By Dave Beeman on Unrecorded Date: Edit

I purchased an Argo Conquest this past summer, very impressed so far, it has a few hours on it(340), but runs well, and was a godsend for caribou and moose season. Ran through the muskeg, and tundra muffins like nothing, and there wer very few mudholes that I had to go around, one of the mudholes was 2.76 miles long by GPS, it was actually just a crappy piece of trail chewed up by quads, and SUSV's, plugged right on through. Well now it is winter, and I haven't been able to afford tracks, so I am wondering how deep of snow I can run in without tracks, and how do you combat the cold, tried to start it this afternoon, temp was 22 below, battery was weak, and it wouldn't start. Am I going to have to keep the battery out of it or what? I love this site, just wish there wasn't so much machine bashing, seems to me it is a lot like women and guns, a very personal choice. I have logged one hell of a bunch of miles in mine, all through the bush of Alaska. Thanks in advance.

By Doug Barker on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Dave,
Did you say 22 degrees below zero ?
I'm surprised the battery wasn't a frozen block much less still having some charge. Those extreme conditions require a 110v dipstick oil heater or a pad-like battery warmer. I think I've seen both in a J.C. Whitney catalog.
As far as deep snow, I've only ran a Argo 6 in the snow and It didn't like it after the snow was about 8' deep. It left me sitting on top with the wheels spinning. Unfortunately, I think your only option is standard tracks or even supertracks, both of which are very expensive. Someone else on the site might be able to tell you about using dual wheels as I haven't try them.
I saw a cool video of supertracks in deep snow and although you can't go real fast, the video showed a guy driving on top of 4'-5' drifts with no problem.
Man I want to visit Alaska !
Doug

By roy bryant (Sliverpkr) on Unrecorded Date: Edit

hi dave, nice to see someone else on here from ak in my experience with small engines in alaska a oil pan heater works best as heat rises not too impressed with dip stick heaters when its really cold but they are more convinient. my battery dies in the cold too, dougs idea of a battery blanket should help quite a bit. my battery is pretty old so im thinking of going with an optima sealed gell battery, all the pounding the battery takes is making mine leak acid all over one of the forward chains.

By Dave Beeman on Unrecorded Date: Edit

One nice thing here is that the snow is very dry, my quad can bull through about 18" of the stuff, but it doesn't have such a flat bottom with no suspension. I like the dipstick heater idea, and I can't believe living here I didn't think about the battery blanket duh. Thanks. I would love to buy a set of super tracks, but for that price I can pick up a snow machine in perfect condition. Thanks again.

By jsaylors on Unrecorded Date: Edit

Hey guys, I'm from Alaska too. It was a balmy 12 degrees here in Valdez today. Not much snow yet but I'm sure it's on its way.

By brian on Unrecorded Date: Edit

I am fairly news to AK and brought my 90 8x8 magnum with me. I have the trutrax on it and fear that they wont do the job this winter, am I right or can I hope for some use out of it?