I'll speak on the side of heavy equipment and wet ground... While I've never run a tracked excavator I will say that a surprisingly small amount of wet ground can make running a 7-8 ton backhoe a bit sketchy.

I've gotten to where my whole machine is sitting on it's floor pan (I can't think of what that is really called), where all my tires are spinning and stuck in a rut so the front tires wouldn't turn to help extract myself with the hoe bucket. Took about a nerve wracking hour or so to get out. I think tracked equipment handles mud better than that but getting stuck sucks. Having a big tree you can tie off on to pull yourself out of trouble is nice to have.

I'm running into a similar situation, where I'd like to dig my pond deeper but will have to drain it for what I presume is quite a while before I trust running the backhoe down into the pond.

I'll keep an eye on this thread too. Good stuff. Good luck!

Snort Coffee is a podcast about goofy stuff. Hope to add ponding to my list of hobbies.