Snowmobiles

Snowmobiles cause a rift in my heart: on one hand, I favor limiting them to just certain areas, and I feel most of the wild outdoors should never be exposed to the ravages of sound and pollution that snowmobiles inevitably bring.

But oh - on the other hand, I know, first-hand, how it feels to be on a smowmobile, rushing through the snow, on this many-horse, open, fuel-powered sleigh ! I shall always have with me those feelings from my winter sojourns at my sister Mimi's near Steamboat, Colorado. I lived well on Mimi's snowmobiles.

Here's an article about enjoying these machines.

The New York Times

January 15, 2006
Snowmobiles Keep Coming Though the Ice Is Melting
By JOE DRAPE

EAGLE RIVER, Wis., Jan. 14 - It has been a tough winter here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for reasons less-hardy souls may have trouble fathoming. White gold, the local name for snowfall, has been meager, and the sunny skies and the 39-degree weather make it downright balmy for a place accustomed to temperatures of zero and below.

So far it has claimed this town of 1,443's proudest winter attraction: the Ice Castle, which for more than 70 years has been sculptured from more than 2,000 blocks of lake ice and stood sentinel on Railroad Street. Then the Eagle River Area Fire Department lost a borrowed pickup truck when it plunged into Silver Lake as the ice harvest began 17 days ago.

But the wintertime blues disappeared Friday night, Day 2 of the 43rd annual World Championship Snowmobile Derby, which residents herald as the Indianapolis 500 of snowmobile racing.

Jimmy Blaze followed a fireworks display, which opened Friday Night Thunder, by defying physics and doing a back flip on a snowmobile to the whoops and mitten-muffled applause of the 10,000 people who crammed on a snow-covered hill at Eagle River Derby Track. The temperature had dropped to 25; the wind chill made it feel like 11 and a steady snow fell.

Hundreds of the young men and women in parkas bearing the logos of their favorite sled manufacturers, like Polaris and Arctic Cat, arrived by snowmobile. Families, too, planted camping chairs in the white bowl, but while mothers and fathers watched the racers hit 100 miles an hour on the track's icy oval, their snowsuit-bundled children found a steeper hill for body-sledding.

"The Derby made this town," said Chuck Decker, who owns the track and the event that celebrates all things snowmobile. "This community was one of the first to get hold of snowmobiles to race them, to make them a family activity and to really love them."

The high-pitch whir of motorized sleds screamed from the 600 miles of trails that crisscross the woods and towns of Vilas County and drew more than 30,000 people here for the weekend. At the Ico Station, snowmobiles idled behind cars at the gas pumps. Dim headlights darted across Highway 70 to the sound of scraping asphalt as sledders sniffed out another trail. At Smuggler's Lounge, a dark, shotgun tavern, they emitted steam in the parking lot.

"The helmet rack is halfway down to the right," the bartender at Smuggler's Lounge said, greeting one snowmobiler after another who walked through the door.

The more than 200 competitors who came here for four days of racing in junior, amateur, semipro and professional divisions were a serious bunch. They stalked the Best Western near the track in racing boots and leathers tattooed with patches from myriad sponsors.

But the motels along Wall Street, Eagle River's stoplight-free main artery, and the resorts along its jumble of lakes offered easy access to the trails for the thousands who had come to drive their neon-colored machines up to 100 miles a day.

There is a reason this town proclaims itself the Snowmobile Capital of the World. The vehicle is rooted in the county's history. Carl Eliason of nearby Sayner, Wis., put a motor on a toboggan to fashion the first snowmobile in the 1920's. Snowmobiles have become part of the region's culture, used for transportation as well as recreation. Students ride them to Northland Pines High School and anglers park them alongside ice-fishing shacks on many of the 1,300 frozen freshwater lakes here.

"They are practical," said Bill Demlow, a hunting and fishing guide. "Everyone is up here for the outdoors, and if you can't get to work or go out to the woods or on the lakes, you'll go goofy."

Vilas County issues tourist-handy trail maps that list 63 businesses as official "pit stops" to break up a sledder's day. They range from diners to beer joints, from resorts to beer joints and from fine restaurants to, yes, more beer joints.

Wisconsin has averaged 25 snowmobile fatalities over the past 10 years, with alcohol contributing to more than half of them, according to a 2003-4 report by the state Department of Natural Resources.

Still, the state government embraces the pastime, promoting more than 20,000 miles of snowmobile trails. Last November the Wisconsin State Lottery teamed with the World Championship Snowmobile Derby for a $2 scratch-off game called Cool Winnings.

There are perhaps two kinds of snowmobile enthusiasts: speed demons and nature lovers.

"It's my rush, my release," said Stacey Schwartz, 24, a paralegal from Burlington, Wis., who won the women's division race last year, an achievement that returned $85, or $4 more than her entry fee.

Unlike Nascar, snowmobile racing is mostly a break-even proposition. The top professional teams spend $200,000 a year on equipment, testing and travel, but the season is short. Most racers hold other jobs.

"It doesn't matter what level you're racing at, it's like one big family," said Schwartz, whose father and brother are professionals.

Dick Burbey, on the other hand, is clearly in the outdoors camp.

Before attending opening day of the snowmobile derby, he put on his leathers, pulled his sled out of the garage at his home in Goodman, Wis., and glided over wooded trails for 100 miles. Burbey, a 57-year-old truck driver, said that his arms were sore but that it was a small price to pay.

"I saw a dozen deer and at one point had to stop because there was a wolf on the trail," he said. "I sat there and waited for him. Where else can you see that?"

In 1964, an innkeeper named John Alward, along with his wife, Betty, and a friend, Walter Goldsworthy, were the founders of the snowmobile derby. The Alwards, whose Chanticleer Inn is situated within one million acres of national and state forests with chains of pristine lakes filled with fish, and other business people had long attracted Midwesterners seeking good fishing and cool temperatures in the summer. But John Alward was concerned by what happened when this summer haven froze over.

"We had a couple of snowmobiles in the garage, and Dad figured more than a few other people did, too," said Jake Alward, who still owns the Chanticleer Inn, which his father bought in 1951. "He decided to have a rally and caught all kinds of stuff for it. People around here thought he was crazy."

When more than 100 racers entered and 2,000 people showed up for what was billed as the World's First Snowmobile Derby, resort and restaurant owners hurried to winterize their facilities. The inaugural race was run on and around Dollar Lake, next to the Chanticleer Inn, and many of the snowmobiles could not make it up a small hill. Eventually, an eighth grader named Stan Hayes took first place in the marquee race for 9-horsepower sleds.

The Alwards held the championships on their property one more year before passing it on to the local Lions Club.

"The Lions Club trademarked the name World Championship Snowmobile Derby, so anyone who wanted to call themselves a world champion had to race in Eagle River," said Decker, whose family bought the event in 1985.

Decker, who was the 1986 world champion in the marquee 25-lap Pro 440 class, has built the derby into an extravaganza. He enticed sponsors whose brightly colored signs overwhelm the snowy backdrop; by contrast, minor league baseball stadiums look aesthetically restrained.

Decker added "hot seats," or heated suites, for those willing to pay $80 to $225. Last year, that looked like a bargain as temperatures lingered around 20 below zero. Decker also groomed bumps and jumps inside the oval for sno-cross racing and put lights above the track.

About $130,000 in cash, prizes and trophies were on the line over the weekend, Decker said, nearly a third of it earmarked for the 12 professionals from Minnesota, Michigan, Canada and, of course, Wisconsin, who qualified for the Pro 440 class finals on Sunday. But for competitors and spectators alike, Derby Week, as it is called, is more about the experience than about the money.

"We came mainly to ride," said Jim Anderson of Junction, Ill., who was unwinding with a beer outside Sweetwater Spirits and Resort (Pit Stop No. 56) after coming off the trails.

Schwartz, the paralegal, made the five-hour drive to Eagle River with her daughters, 8-year-old Alexis and 5-year-old Hannah, to try to defend her title. Hannah just joined the junior circuit.

"This is the most prestigious race of them all," Schwartz said. "You win this and you got bragging rights. I'm the only one in my family that can say I'm a world champion."

###

the middlebrow
Snowmobiles
Slumming on the slopes.
By Bryan Curtis


Among winter sportsmen, the downhill skier is the one most concerned with his social status. Vail tourists exude a mild hauteur, whereas telemarkers have an unshaven disdain for the common herd. Cross-country skiing has its own rarefied constituencies—fitness freaks, bird-watchers—and snowshoers are gentle souls who want to commune with the forest. Then there is the snowmobiler, the most noxious of the lot. His social and aerobic obligations are minimal.

Though James Bond piloted a snowmobile in A View to a Kill, the snowmobiler is not a chic winter tourist. He is a grunt from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a man who pauses on 100-mile rides to hit a circuit of boozy "pit stops" with names like the Hoop 'N' Holler (an actual destination). As he plows through bucolic meadows, the snowmobiler leaves a thick trail of purple exhaust. He sneers at environmentalists who would ban him from the national parks. He calls his ride a "machine."

I was in the mountains near Durango, Colo., the other day to hang out with snowmobilers. A woman from an outfit called Outlaw Tours had asked me to meet her along the road that winds north into the San Juan Mountains.

At the appointed spot, I found the group's headquarters, a teal shack with restroom facilities conveniently situated in the snow out back. There was a light snow falling, and seven Polaris snowmobiles were lined up out front. With thin skis protruding from their noses, the machines looked like crustaceans on ice in a fish market.

Myself and four other relative novices would follow our guides on a two-hour snowmobile tour. Half of it would be conducted on snow-packed trails in slow-motion single file, and the other half on a frozen lake, where we would be able to hit the accelerator and really "open it up." A guide approached me and asked, "May I start your machine?" and with a satisfying roar we set off.

The primary virtue of snowmobiling is that it's ludicrously easy. "A lot of people who snowmobile are lazy," explained a happily unshaven 29-year-old guide named Mike, who later was seen riding his machine and smoking a cigarette at the same time.

The main skill under study by a novice snowmobiler is the technique called "butt steering," in which you throw your rear weight in the direction that you wish to turn. The other thing to remember is that the accelerator is on the right handlebar and the brake is on the left.

Outlaw Tours insists on babying its customers. Cherry-red helmets prevent injury to the cranium, and the machine's handlebars have warmers to prevent chapped hands. (Katie Holmes, pregnant with Tom Cruise's child, was spotted riding a snowmobile this winter, and one can only imagine the amenities provided to her.) The only real danger is the wide, horsey saddle, which, as soon as the machine is set in motion, produces a rather merciless vibration in the groin region.

After a few uncertain starts, we came onto the trails. I was riding second from the lead, trailing Mike's machine. Every five minutes or so, Mike would turn around to make sure I hadn't cruised into a birch tree, at which point the two of us would exchange a terribly strained thumbs-up and then speed off again.

Trail-riding is a bit like navigating a maze, with sharp turns and constant application of the brakes, and after more than a few 90-degree turns, the maneuvering can become tedious. But within minutes we reached the frozen lake, a placid, magnificent spot high in the mountains. The lake had been covered in a thin powder, with only a small beaver dam and few patches of exposed ice as obstacles. Positioning the machine to give myself the longest possible straightaway, I hit the gas and went blistering across the icy lake at speeds approaching 45 miles per hour (this feels very fast on snow), before coming up on the snowy berms on the other side, at which point I squeezed the brakes with equal ferocity.

I completed this circuit about three dozen times, with loud whoops as I reached top speed. Mike stood next to his snowmobile, smoking a cigarette and enjoying the sight of an out-of-towner making an utter fool of himself.

Snowmobiling is an unambitious sport even among its biggest fans. "The idea is to have fun and don't destroy the machines," explained Mike, who added that the snowmobile pilots enjoyed the same narcotic regimen as ski bums.

Like ski-bumming, snowmobiling encourages open-ended adventures. The basic idea is to charge off into the wilderness, sometimes covering 100 miles in a day, or else try stunts like high-marking, a contest to see who can reach the highest point on a slope with or without starting an avalanche. (DVDs with titles like Redneck Fury 2 catalog the more gut-wrenching exploits.)

Another popular outing is the night ride, with a lantern strapped to the helmet as you whiz through the pitch-black forest. Needless to say, all of these are insanely dangerous. For the most hard-core snowmobilers, who in America can be found mostly in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, it is made more so by frequent stops for alcohol. The whole thing resembles a softball game where there's a keg of beer at every base.

As a result, sledheads have a gruesome injury history. According to one newspaper, Wisconsin alone averages about 25 snowmobile deaths per year. Many result from snowmobilers going too fast (souped-up machines can reach 100 miles per hour), being too drunk, or some combination thereof.

After one rider's death, a Madison newspaper reprinted a sheriff's report that provides the most heartbreaking evocation to date of snowmobiling culture: "All members were drinking that day at each 'pit stop.' Average of one beer or drink per hour. They had been riding all day, approximately six hours worth and traveled approximately 125 miles of the trail circuit. At two different stops, they had pizza or hamburgers."

There is a pitched battle between snowmobilers and environmentalists over the use of machines in national parks. All I can say is that if you think snowmobiles represent an affront to nature, then you should get a load of the Texans who deposit themselves in Colorado each winter. But the environmentalists' point is taken.

Winter beauty is based on beautiful foliage and total silence, and buzzing on a snowmobile makes these qualities impossible to appreciate. By the end of our two-hour tour, only Mike and I remained, the other machinists having gotten tired of the "butt steering." We switched off our machines, and for the first time all day I noticed we were parked in one of the more serene spots I've ever seen in my life—a crest filled with pistachio-colored aspens and white-capped pines, the winter sun peeking through inky snow clouds.

Introspection not being fashionable for a snowmobiler, Mike and I grunted only a few words about the beauty of the place. Satisfied that we had communed with nature, and noticing we were presently traveling at zero miles per hour, we pulled the starter cords, revved the machines, and growled back into the forest.
Bryan Curtis is a Slate staff writer. You can e-mail him at curtisb@slate.com.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2134210/

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