When I was a very little girl, less than two years old, my father got me my first snowmobile. It was an Arctic Cat Kitty Cat and probably went about 15 mph. I would stop and go a few feet at a time and then stop again. On the outside looking in, my father probably looked like an adrenaline junkie trying to live through his kid; but many people didn’t foresee me possessing the same obsession with snow machines later on.
Now, I’ve got a pretty sweet sled. I like to hit jumps and get air, but my favorite thing is going fast, as dorky as it may sound. Snowmobiles aren’t just for boys and they aren’t just for show. They are serious, powerful machines and they continue to fascinate me over and over again. Not liking the cold just doesn’t cut it as an excuse not to try it anymore, and here’s why:
1. If you do it right, you’re not gonna be cold.
Here’s the deal, if it’s not dangerously cold (I’m talking negative 20 or more degrees Fahrenheit here), then you won’t be cold. If you take precaution to have proper gear and underclothes, you will not be cold. Snowmobiling is pretty physical when you get down to it. You can be up in some mountain range and get sunburned because you took your face mask off under your helmet, or maybe you just wore a t-shirt because your coat and sweatshirt were too warm!
2. It can bring you closer to your family members.
Whether your friends or blood relatives ride with you, it’s always a bonding experience. You might have your own little snowmobiling family, with whom you go on trips and make memories with. If your sled is a piece of junk, your dad or mom or brother or best friend will always be next to you wrenching on it. Absence of an engine fire always makes the heart grow fonder, am I right?
3. It’s exhilarating.
There’s a breathtaking moment when you feel like one with yourself and the machine, and it gets addicting. For me, it was the first time I made my snowmobile go as fast as it could across a flat lake when I truly fell in love. I felt the chill of West Lake Okoboji’s winter air go through the vents in my jacket and I saw the orange in the sky from the sun setting off in the distance. Then I looked down and got scared because it was the first time I went really fast. It sent an excited shiver down my spine and I think I even giggled a bit.
4. You get to escape reality for a bit.
If you wear a helmet (and you always should), then you can’t hear people or communicate well. You, as a driver, must be alert and aware of your surroundings. Your mom won’t be there to warn you. Many people resort to simple hand signals to say things like stop, go ahead, drive around a certain obstacle, or to just say hi to someone they pass. You can be a different kind of you because you can’t use words. You can use body language or signs, but you need some form of communication that isn’t the norm…
5. You get to go on cool trips.
If you don’t live in a place that’s winter all the time, then you can’t snowmobile year-round. And if you grow to really love it, you can go on adventures to mountain ranges, or flat lands, or even lakes. You can stay at resorts that are just as fancy as an island paradise or you stay in little towns with motels and dive bars. Some places don't even get cell service so you can go under the radar and just have fun.
6. You get to see things like this first hand.
Nature is beautiful. When you’re on a snowmobile trail far away from a town or city, it can be so quiet, peaceful, breath taking. You can go places that a car won’t take you. You might even be on so much snow that you’re on top of an entire forest, so you are seeing something that only birds and airplanes see.
Riding snowmobiles has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and then even longer than that. Riding has helped me find inner peace on a 20 degree January day in the cornfield behind my farm, when everything else just seems to make my life chaotic. This article goes out to anyone with a hobby that means the world to them. What ever your snowmobile may be, ride it!
