Snowdog thoughts

[dubob]

I took possession of my Snowdog on Dec 19, 2020.  I doctored up the enclosed trailer with some E-Track strips for tie downs and loaded all me gear up.

First trip with the Dog is now history.  I took it to Smith & Morehouse the Wednesday before New Years day.  It pulled me (235), my Clam Nanook XL Thermal, and all my ice gear.  The steering is a learning curve for sure - not nearly as easy as steering a quad or snowmobile.  I had a chance to run some slush on the way out and back and did not get bogged down in it.  Burley wasn't so lucky with his machine on that day.  The story is that he did get stopped but was able to maneuver out of it by getting it back on top of the snow and walking beside it for a short bit.  I'll have to remember that just in case.

One of the things that became abundantly clear almost immediately was that the stand-in sled that you haul yourself in is very slick (slippery) when covered with snow dust.  After thinking about this for a short bit, I decided that a rubber mat of some sort should be found and placed on the inside floor of that sled.  I measured the bottom width and length inside the sled and came up with a 20" X 3' dimension requirement.  Lowes was my first stop and low and behold I found exactly what I was looking for in their flooring department on the door mat rack.  It is an all rubber mat made for indoor/outdoor mat that is 2' X 3' size for $20.



Placed it in the sled and the long edge (3') rolls up the sides a tad on both sides.  Ill try it this way for a trip or two and see how much, if any, it moves during use.  If it tends to move, I can always trim it to the exact width of 20".  My military style micky mouse boots should hold without slipping on the rubber surface with all the little nubbins built into the surface intended to act like scrapers.

My next mod will be some Kolpin single gun racks to hold the K-Drill auger.  On order from Amazon; be here Tuesday.



Next trip should be to Hyrum next week Wednesday now that it has finally capped with enough ice to make machine travel safe.  Reports are 5" ice and growing.