If you don’t know what a Jet Sled is here’s some homesteading winter advice. If you live where it snows, you need a Jet Sled. Get one yesterday! It’s a huge force multiplier.
A Jet Sled is a load carrying sled. It’s 1000X tougher than the cheap orange plastic toys you loved and destroyed as a kid. It’s not for riding down a hill, it’s for hauling shit. It’s tough enough for an ice fisherman, a hunter dragging a deer, or a Curmudgeon hauling firewood. It’s one of my best investments!
I have an Otter Pro Small. I bought it for $79 over a decade ago. (I’m surprised the logo and price tag have survived all these years!) It has never been indoors. It lives in the woodshed year round. I use in the coldest of weather. I don’t know how, but the rotomolded plastic material they used is going to outlast us all! Mine still looks almost new.
I checked Amazon and you can get the same model right now for $69.* I’m SHOCKED that it’s $10 CHEAPER brand new than what I paid in 2015 (or whenever I got mine). How the hell did that happen?
I easily carry triple in the sled what I’d haul by hand. It’s a lot less work too. I’ve used it in absolutely stupidly cold temperatures and the material has never cracked. If your path is flat and shoveled (or otherwise not deep snow, like scoured by the wind) you can pull gargantuan loads.
If you’re solo (as I always am) I recommend you get the small sled. Too much is inferior to just right. Small size keeps one man from overloading beyond his limit. No need to deliberately line your chiropractor’s pocket. Under the right conditions me and the sled haul wood faster than the tractors warm up cycle!
Now ya’ know.
RED ALERT: NEW INFORMATION INCOMING!
I just couldn’t get over my $79 sled costing a mere $69 now. Inflation doesn’t work that way. I did further investigation:
My first link was to an Otter Jet Sled SPORT; which you can buy for $69. What I have is an Otter Jet Sled PRO; which clocks in at $699.
Am I hauling wood with a $700 sled? I JUST FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR!
Here’s a video of the PRO. That’s what I own and I’ve been working it like a rented mule. Note, the sled in this video is larger than mine. I don’t have a snowmobile so the bigger variant would have killed me. Also I don’t have the blue HyFax skids underneath. Such things are irrelevant at walking speeds.
Fine, so the PRO is built for being towed by machines. I knew that. I’ve been a human tractor so long I never thought about it. I never knew there was a “not towed by machine” variant.
I don’t have the tow assembly because it’s pointless if I don’t own a snowmobile. (If anyone wants to adopt out a Skidoo just tell me!) I’ve just got rope. I have towed the sled behind an ATV (using only rope) and it was fine. The sled clearly has zero fucks to give over any stress.
I found a video with a perfect comparison of the SPORT versus the PRO. I’d guess his conclusion is that I’m a dumbass for pulling an extra 15 pounds of sled when I don’t need to. He’s probably right.
Sorry about going down the rabbit hole; but I am serious that a man pulling a sled can do tremendous work compared to lifting with your arms (and it’s faster than warming up a diesel tractor!).
None of this applies if you live where it doesn’t snow and, as always, YMMV.
A.C.