You can use your Can-am Defender to do a lot of snow grooming. It is a very capable Side-By-Side vehicle that works great as it has a heated cabin and lots of room for customizing it. With added accessories, it turns into an excellent snow grooming vehicle.
Can-am Defender on snow and snow grooming requirements
Here is what you need for your Can-am Defender to make it run on snow, play in snow, and groom your snow.
Tracks
To snow groom with Side-By-Side, you need tracks. One of our favorites is Camso tracks. We have used others, and we like the Camso tracks the most. It would be impossible to snow groom where we groom without tracks. Now not to say that you cannot get stuck in these tracks. As we have. But that is deep fresh powder. Many feet of powder and wind drifted as well. (see youtube video of our Can Am defender snow grooming with Camso Tracks .)
Snow Groomer
You need a snow groomer to groom. In this case, for the Can-am Defender, we primarily use a 48” Sno-Master snow groomer when the trails are narrower. But if you have a wider trail or road, then the 72” SNO-MASTER grooms up to a 96” (2.4M) trail in a single pass, which can be super nice. We use these types of groomers for sleigh riding hills, snowboarding, and snowmobile trails. Check out the video below of how we used our snow groomer on the Can-Am Defender
Extender Hitch
We have an 18” extender hitch to get the groomer past the tracks as the Camso tracks stick out behind the Can-am Defender. This allows us to turn without the tow bars hitting the tracks. It is also a double hitch so that we can haul our snowboards up the hill simultaneously and let guys snowboard on the way back down. (see picture)
Top Rack
We have a top rack for hauling extra gear and emergency equipment. This includes shovels, come along, tow rope, tree saver, and standard gas cans. (see pictures and video.) We have a kit with tire plugs and tools we know we need in case of trouble.
Light Bar
Lots of snow grooming is done at night and having a huge light bar is so nice. The light bar is placed on top so that the snowplow does not block the light.
Snow Plow
Speaking of which, we have a snowplow for our Can-am Defender. We have been beating it up pretty bad. Because we run tracks, the snowplow has to be way farther out in front, and with needing to have the snowplow angled to the side, it makes it even farther out front. It also is not a 6-way plow. We need a 6-way plow to cut the drifts that fill the road. It is hard not to slide off the road when the road gets drifted in from the high side to the low side. This plow would work great for plowing the snow on the level and just making it, so you get down to cement or asphalt. But when you have to hold it up, hit snow whoops, and try to cut drifts flat, it is just not working. We cannot find a plow to fit our UTV that is built heavy enough to withstand what we need, and none have 6-way movement. Do you think we need to make one?
Our Custom additions (accessories)
We have built a custom rack for the back on our Can-am Defender because we just need to haul more things. We are just testing this out to ensure it does all the things we want. For sure, we will be able to carry more show boards and lots more gas because of the attachments we have put on it. These are standard attachments, so gas cans easily attach, etc. We actually already know we built it too heavy. It just does not need to be as heavy as we built it. It attaches to the frame via the bed bolts, which is very secure. (see pictures and video.) After using it, we will let you know all the good and the bad. We had to build our own as we could not buy one anywhere.
Even when Covid would have let us buy a rack, we most likely would not have because the only racks we can find fit on the top sides of the bed and would not haul all we need to. This is just not sturdy enough to put the rack and everything we want in it and attached to it. However, we went with a little more robust construction than was needed in our use.
We needed a place for tie-down hooks, and there are lots on the custom rack we made. It has a place to attach your spare tire. Super nice, but that is for the summer. We do not have a spare Camso track and have not figured out how to attach it if we did. The nice thing is that tracks do not go flat on you. We have tried other UTV tracks, but the Camso tracks have not broken down on the trail as far as I know so far. Here is the custom Rack:
Extra Gas
You need extra gas when snow grooming long runs with the Can-am Defender. Camso tracks are very nice, but they are geared down, so you get less MPG when compared to tires. When grooming, you often use lots of gas because you push snow and go up and down hills. This rack allows us to haul the extra gas easily.
Summary
Snow grooming in a Can-Am Defender with an enclosed cab and having a heater, Windshield wipers, top light bar, and being able to haul passengers with their snowboards just make snow grooming extra fun. Snowmobiles can tow a snow groomer and groom great trails. But they cannot do all the other things spoken of here. A Can-Am defender is useful for many things, including snow grooming, especially when you set it up correctly. The addons make things nice and solve issues we have in turning a Can-Am into a super flexible Sno Cat.
We think that a Can-Am Defender can be a mini snowcat. Well, we have proven that you can use Can-am Defender for snow grooming. You do not have to be a mechanic to fix it up all the time. Like we have had to on Sno cats.
