Dude: "So I bring up that I am a snowmobiler and that he probably hates us." I'd probably be a little unhappy if you said that to me. You should have said "I'm buying stuff for snowmobiling", and let him go negative if chose to. Don't insinuate that he should hate you, cause he shouldn't. I always act surprised that they don't love us.
xtralettucetomatoe580, The responses to you thread over on epicski.com were pretty much what I've come to expect. Most real skiers don't hate us. Just the ones that are looking for a fight, more than skiing. I've seen pretty much every camp of skier at the meetings, skiers that could care less about sleds, skiers that really want a lift to the top of the hill, skiers that hate noise and smell, skiers that hate snowshoes, skiers that trail ski, skiers that access with sleds, skiers that hate dogs, skiers with dogs, skiers that ski were we can't even go, and skiers that hate sleds but aren't really sure why, and people that claim to ski and just want to close areas to sleds (ie: greenies). I've meet a few skiers that admitted they had to ski a new area, because they got the old area closed to sleds, and now they have no access. There's all types, and if your clever, you can set the camps against one another pretty easily. Just mention dogs, and go to lunch, they'll still be at it when you get back.
The maggot guy found a violent thread on this site (whooo), from a couple months ago. Did he have to search for that? He kinda missed the point of the thread, they weren't mad because they couldn't sled Wilderness. They were mad because the local ranger decided to close all the never ending Wilderness Study Areas (WSA), which is probably illegal. A WSA isn't a wilderness area, congress never voted on it (or should I say refused to vote on it?). And, those guys were just bantering, does he actually expect people to start shooting? (when was the last time you heard of someone shooting skiers?) I'd say those guys were just mad and felt a little helpless since it wasn't fair. Talk of shooting "those people" is pretty common out west. Between Californians and greenies telling people all the stuff they can't do, people are generally feed up with feel good forestry. You want to see shooting talk, go to a meeting where the forest service is telling people they can't hunt the way they want to, or collect firewood, then you'll hear shooting talk.
Basically, I sled were skier can't go. I slow down and wave to them. I don't want a loud pipe. And, I don't go looking for a fight. Too bad everyone doesn't just chill and go have a good time. What we need is a little tolerance, and respect for one another. And, each groups majority, putting the minority in it's place.
