Snow Mobility Scooters
:date: 2026-02-13 21:44 :tags:
When I was an 8 year old kid, my dad bought two snowmobiles. We lived in Alaska so that seemed sane. I rode on the back of his many times. I have memories of falling off the back of his snowmobile, rolling down into a creek (frozen), and scrambling back up as fast as I could so I wouldn't be passed by when he realized I was gone and he came back to look for me. Slightly less sane, sometimes he figured he'd ride one and I'd ride the other. And we did that. I rode around the Alaskan wilderness driving a snowmobile as a second grader. That's kind of cool, kind of crazy, and kind of funny all at once.
I understand snowmobiles well enough. They are, in fact, a critical piece of equipment in my main sport. The only way I could possibly ski this trail like this is because it was groomed with a snowmobile. It would not be absurd for me to own one for utilitarian purposes.
But generally speaking, they are damn obnoxious. First off, you may think the steering is done with the front skis - wrong. The skis attempt to keep the front end from diving into the ground. What steers is what I call the "rudders" which are vertical steel fins on the skis. And it's not hard to use your imagination to think of the destruction this pair of giant knives can do to the landscape. This is why asphalt roads have concrete sections at snowmobile trail crossings.
The area I live in is a very popular location for snowmobile tourism. I think the locals are relatively reasonable, but the tourists can be pretty stupid. I love seeing a clan of them stopped to smoke cigarettes by the propane tank at the Wetmore gas station. Fortunately every person you ever see on a snowmobile is scrupulously sober.
In the winter, they're by far the main source of noise. For some insane reason, they like to drive around in the middle of the night. When I did a lot of skiing out into the timberlands last year, if ever I'd get a decent track established, it could be counted on to be destroyed by snowmobiles. They will go out of their way just to wreck my tracks. By the end of the season I was skiing with one foot on each side of stumps I knew to be buried in the snow. I can be obnoxious too.
Sometimes when I'm driving to the grocery store, I'll tune the radio to static and crank up the volume; then I'll roll down all the windows and say, "Look at me! I'm snowmobiling!" Seriously, have a look at this (silent dashcam) footage I took driving home today and, after the first 10 seconds, tell me, what exactly could I possibly be missing by not being on a snowmobile?
Much of that is a solid 50mph. Not exactly Swedish rally racing, but faster than I drive those roads in the summer (the snow is actually smoother than the dirt, and the entire road is lined with padding). Mya was with me and appreciated that we were not snowmobiling.
Ah, but my Subaru can't go into the serious deep snow back country — or something like that. As someone who totally can and does explore the winter forest in detail, I can confidently say, snowmobiles have surprisingly similar limitations to our car. They are quite unstable in very deep snow and to plow into very deep low density snow like we currently have is incredibly sketchy. I know what's on the forest floor and I advise against driving a snowmobile over it!
So what's going on in the first 10 seconds of that video? I saw a lot of snowmobiles today but this knucklehead put on a perfect demonstration of the kind of thing I see. Right in front of me — left side of the road — this dude just rolls the snowmobile over onto its side while sitting there doing nothing! It's kind of sad, but also very hilarious too. I should have stopped and said, hey, if you want to sell that thing very cheap, I could use one for grooming ski trails.
