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The goverment has a website, with occupational accidents and from what I recall, there are quite a few incidents involving crawler or track type tractors. Some of these incidents, although tragic, are certainly something to learn from. You might find some of these records of interest, some of things I remember from that site, I would have never even thought of, like the person who was doing some work on a neighboring farm, modifying some sort of a pond, had pushed out a slot with shear bank along side of him, over the top of the cab, something collapsed, and I believe this was a wet collapse, he apparently was in a E.R.O.P.S. - enclosed (cab) and the bank or fill would not allow the door to open, his wife came looking, no sign of him or the tractor, little did she know it was right in front of her, buried. There are a lot of things to consider when doing work that has risks involved, like slopes or the above, some of which you may not think of. I spent many years working as an operator in the site work field, and I recall many instances where I should have been strapped in with the seat belt and was not. I have stood a 977-L on it's nose on flat ground, ( something collapsed below ) with a full bucket, as I was loading one of our tandem dumps, no panic, and I got er out, while the entire jobsite stopped to watch. It's good to learn what to do, how to select the best machine for the job or consider what you must do to work with what you have. If you are going to be on slopes, you had best be able to secure yourself to the seat and make sure the R.O.P.S. you have is factory, certified, engineered to sustain the loading it will take in the event of a roll over. Many of the incidents I read involved FAILURE of roll over protection structures, that were home built, or really just protection against brush and fallen objects, not factory built or otherwise engineered for a specific tractor. If you have bolts missing, I'd want to give that entire structure a close inspection, cracks, faulty welds, missing fasteners, whatever, it's needs to be 100% at all times, and you MUST wear the belt for it to work. Honestly, I don't care to work slopes after a certain grade, it's a stressful situation, a lot of highway contractor operators deal with it all the time, so do loggers and other types of trades, I recall reading where the would attach winch lines to a dozer so they could work steep angles, kind of like what people would do with lawnmowers on hills, let er roll down the hill and pull it back up with the rope. That is not something I would want to be doing as an operator, it is amazing what has been done to overcome obstacles like this, high risk work.
In the winter on hard frozen ground, or on snow or ice, you have to be very careful, the grouser pads will act like a skate and you will go for a ride, been there done that, dear old dad did it years ago and went more than 100 yds on the old D7, problem is if you hit a stump or rock, you are most likely goin over.
It's nice to have the wider pads, like an LGP with 3'-0" pads, but sloping and uneven ground is harder on an undercarriage, I believe that the wear factor increases as you are applying wear forces differently, as opposed to working on the flat. Be careful, read up, ask experienced people, get the r.o.p.s. repaired 100%, wear the seatbelt and work to your comfortable limits, and or the machines limits, don't go beyond your comfort level, use common sense and feel, if it don't feel right, don't do it, if it's not worth the risk, don't do it, you may be able to get some slope information from the manufacturer. There are a few slopes here that I wish I could mow, along with the field and would probably have no trouble, but there are a few risks, so I just leave em be, no sense it, is my philosophy, not critical that these areas get cleared for any reason, although I'd like to, I realize that it needs to be done carefully, and the area must be walked and there is some risk with the tractor I have, although it's heavily weighted, low center of gravity, and I've had a JD 2010 narrow front on the same slopes years ago, it used to creep me out to no end LOL, and that is a strange feeling, knowing you could go over, and that 2010 is a lot higher than my old Ford 850. Seems I'm a lot more cautious, older, wiser, was a kid back then and that 2010 could have got me on a number of occasions, fine on the flats but slopes, I'll take the ole fix or repair daily LOL !! Kind of different, we're talking crawlers here.
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