Scenic Safaris (www.scenic-safaris.com) offers summer and winter rentals and guide service. And this isn’t their first rodeo, as they entertain thousands of riders both on snow (the company offers more than 250 sleds to rent each winter) and dirt every year.
Smith pointed out that Scenic Safaris offers guide and self-guided tours and rentals every winter. Scenic Safaris offers sledding trips out of four different locations in the winter, most of which are out of its main winter office on South U.S. Highway 89 in Jackson. The company does, however, do a lot of guiding/rentals out of Flagg Ranch into Yellowstone National Park.
During our side-by-side ride up Curtis Canyon on a brisk fall day in October (with newly fallen snow, ironically), we posed all those rental vs. trailering questions to Smith. Here are a few things he pointed out that sledders should consider when trying to make that decision.
First, he said, when renting, “I’ve saved the cost of having to get it [sled] out here. That includes taking time off to drive [vs. flying], which can be a couple days each way.” Also consider, he said, “Because sleds are so niche, customers get a totally different experience than what they can get on a sled they bring out.”
Smith even went so far as to say, depending on the number of times you ride each winter, maybe renting is a better option than buying. “When you buy a sled, say you use it 15-20 times a winter. That can be about $500 a ride. I would rather pay the money to rent than to buy,” if you don’t ride much. He continued, “There are also maintenance costs and the cost of keeping it running. We do all our own maintenance in-house. We have eight full-time year-round mechanics.”
It’s because of those costs that Smith said, in some instances, “It costs so much more to own than to rent.”
But aren’t rental sleds like rental cars—sometimes abused and misused? There is the misconception that rental snowmobiles “are all beat up,” Smith said. “But the sleds we rent are never more than three years old. We want to stay on the top edge of technology.” Scenic Safari’s fleet of snowmobiles are all Ski-Doos. Those include Grand Touring, Summit SP 600 and Summit SP 850 models. You can choose the Summits for guided or self-guided rides.
So which one do you rent? “If you’ve been on a snowmobile less than five times, then you don’t need an 850,” Smith said. “Go with the 600. If you’ve been on a sled more than five times, then get an 850 and try it. You’ll see the extra oomph.”
“When people ask what the difference is between models, I ask, ‘What do you want to drive?’” There’s the mini van (Grand Touring), Porsche (Summit SP 600) or Bugatti (Summit SP 850)—that’s how Smith explains it.
Guided or self-guided? “Choose a tour if you want the high adventure and guide to do it,” Smith explained. “Unless you’ve been here a lot and know the backcountry, I think it’s crazy to take a backcountry trip without a guide. He can take you to the cubby hole that has untouched powder and it can be that ride that connects the dots of two areas on a map. That’s the benefit of a guide.”