If you are wanting to know what machine to snow groom with you are in the right place.  We may not know every machine or have used every machine.  But our customers sure have.

Laying classic cross country tracks.

For our smaller groomers or cross country, classic track layers snowmobiles work great.

There are even machines literally built for this. Having a proper utility snowmobile that has the proper clutch/gearing for towing and a wide track for grip while towing is important when grooming snow in the wintertime. 

Popular snowmobile models used for grooming snow trails in the winter

Skandic is probably the top utility snowmobiles in Canada and is a very popular snowmobile with our customer base. Personally, the crew here at Snow Groomers own a Ski-Doo Skandic for grooming our personal snowmobile trails.  

Arctic Cat Bearcat GS  where the GS literally stands for Groomer special.  This thing has all the attachments and is ready to pull our small groomers.

Yamaha VK 540 is also used by many of our customers.  We do not own one at least at this time.  But it works great according to our customers.

Polaris Voyager is used by lots of our customers.

There are many sleds that are mountain powder sleds that will pull our groomers but are not set up to do it.  They are not made to go slow and you have to do some work to have a way to attach the groomer to.

Most all side by sides with Tracks can lay cross country trails but usually, we want a wide path for these and a larger groomer with a trakor attached works well.

Best snowmobile machine to snow groom fat bike trails

Snowmobiles work best for this because lots of fat bike trails are narrow and not made for side by sides.

ATV’s with tracks work well here too.

So again many snowmobiles work but if you stick with the Skandic, Polaris Voyager, Yamaha VK, Bearcat GS.  Things are just easy and these machines are made to do this.

What machine to snow groom wide trails > 50”

When you get to larger trails or trails that you want to skate ski and classic ski on the same trail then we really like to use ATV/UTV machines with tracks.

It is also nice that the majority of ATV/UTV machines have a hitch that you can attach to your snow groomer.

We currently have a can-am defender, Honda Pioneer and a Yamaha Rhino.  These work fantastic to groom the larger trails with and towing our larger SNO-MASTER 48 and SNO-MASTER 72 snow groomers.  Also these machines can pull at slower speeds which makes for great smooth sledding, tubing and smashing snowmobile whoops.

What machine to snow groom for skate skiing.

Again ATV/UTV is the way to go.  With how popular side by sides has become and you can get tracks for many of them then skate skiing paths are easily made with a groomer that is pulled behind them.

You can actually see in our videos we pull our large snow groomer with a Yamaha Phazer.  It is proof you can pull our groomers with lots of machines.  There is some work on how to attach the groomer.  If the snow is deep then the Phazer struggles with our larger groomers.  Also if it is steep then having more track on the ground and being able to go slower is nice.

There is a huge reason to use smaller machines to pull your groomer.  Cost savings can be huge.  Cost per hour of grooming can literally be 20% of running the large groomers that have augers or need large tractors to groom.