This story originally appeared in the November 2019 (48.2) issue of POWDER.
1. Hands-down the best vehicle yet devised by homo sapiens to travel over snow at high speeds. The easiest, most cost-effective means for one person to convert powder from untracked to tracked. With talent, can be used to bend gravity, climb walls, do backflips, skim across pristine mountain lakes, and leap headlong into death-wielding couloirs.
2. More addictive in the right conditions than sleeping pills or video games. I’ve met great skiers still in their prime who suddenly realize they’ve come to prefer turning a snowmobile in powder than a pair of skis. They have ski racks on their sleds but don’t bother anymore.
3. Impossible to carry on your back. Not the ideal tool for hardpack, ice, gravel, mud, tundra, bushes, or asphalt.
4. Slightly less of a pain in the ass to haul around, store, and maintain than a steam-bent hickory dogsled and twelve mongrel canines. Maybe slightly more expensive. When they die you don’t have to bury them; you just leave them in the yard.
To read the rest of the 11 go here: https://www.powder.com/stories/opinion/11-reasons-why-snomobiles-best-worst/