Being that it was wet and all, there was your normal ruts, but nothing that was permanent. I was extremely impressed with the way the trucks pulled around. The tires were caked with mud, but the chains seemed to stay somewhat clean, the links might have become clogged, but the chain always had that open edge to grab with. On a side note, we had our property logged off last year, selective cutting to promote undergrowth and new trees. They had one skidder there. Huge tires like was mentioned before, but last spring was really wet. Everytime the truck had a load on it, it would try to back back across our field and on to the road. Well, many times it wouldnt be able to make it, so the skidder put the winch cable around the rear of the truck, it had a hitch and would pull it across the field. After the first 2 weeks or so, it got so wet, they needed chains on the skidder. These werent ordinary chains like those picture above, but had a huge cup in the center, about 5 inches in diameter and maybe 3 inches deep. These were now required to pull the truck across the field. At one point before the chains were put on, and the truck got stuck, left rear tires completely covered in mud, the skidder tried to pull it out, but almost got stuck himself. These things are locked front and rear, so all 4 tires were spinning, mind you these are 6 foot tires that are 2 feet wide. He dug all 4 tires about 3 feet into one of our fields. Which we werent happy with and have to be careful going across with the tractor. Try hitting them doing about 20 mph on an atv, not very fun. These machines left considerable ruts in our field and we fixed them ourselves using our own cultivating equipment. Its still not perfect, but better than it was. The main reason it was tore up so bad was because these guys couldnt wait for it to dry out, and were not reasonable with their equipment. If they would have used their heads and been more careful when driving, there wouldnt be ruts. I think they could have prevented a lot of trouble by using the skidder to pull the truck across the field to help reduce wheel spin. Of course, they could have waited for dryer weather too. The chains they used were similar to
these., the gripster, but with a deeper center cup. I dont think things would have been too bad with just the skidder roaming around, but the truck is what caused 99% of the damage. Where the skidder was in the woods, you can not really tell. The driver was really good and the only way to tell is the bark was off the trees he went over. If your looking for a hardcore offroad machine that has its own super heavy duty winch and a scraper, get yourself one of these. I think it would be dang near impossible to get stuck. The truck caused the trouble because of wheel spin and being extremely heavy. The chains I think helped to prevent more damage because it got better traction. Sorry for the long post
Dan
