With such a large community of socially concious people you think there would be a growing market for enviornmentally friendly snowmobilies as well as trying to clean up the rest of the industry. That being said, with endlessly rising gas prices and the possible completion of an era of overconsumption hopefully this new found interest in conserving our resources brings new technology that is affordable for everyone.

Well maybe not everyone, cause I'd love to go back country boarding without the whole town showing up on their electric snowmobilies too...

its scary. today was my first day riding the bus to work and home. it wasn't too bad, i'm lucky enough to be able to ride one route directly from the house to work. this trip takes the same time for me to drive. i figure if i ride the bus whenever possible i can off set the cost of driving my landcruiser up to snowboard 80+ times a year. not to mention the amount of money, miles, wear and tear i'm saving on the truck. my thought is at least i'm doing a small part to reduce the damand on oil and prolong it's existence. another option that i did a lot last year was sleepin in the truck or sleepin up on loveland pass over the week. getting as many shred days as possbile on one trip up and back. either way, i'm with you lance this shit is scary and it's the main reason i never bought a sled this year. maybe i can get a bio-diesel sled or something. haha depressing

the high gas price and our dependance of oil is feed by are culture of i like my life and how i do thing at any cost. snowboarding is the same way. you talk about not wanting to wait in a crowded line to ride, so you take you snowmobile and put lots of money is the gas tank. we as everyone everywhere need to thyink more on the furture than on today right now. I think Illuminati will still sell snowboards if you ride park, just like the majority of us. maybe sell more snowboards because the causal rider will see it more often. a stand needs to be made, someones needs to do it, but nobady wants to be th one to miss out on the bluebirds days in the backcountry.
well thats my take on the topic!

snowboarding is FUN

sounds to me like you should get rid of your lil 600 sled. how much you want for it? that's a good start.
jordan
Don't let your meat loaf, and keep your barrel steril!

i feel the same moral struggle. i love hiking to access backcountry. but sledding allows you to access areas it would take days to hike to, and helps you shred more lines. i'd love to not have a sled. however-as a shred photographer, i would really miss out on shooting days without one. i love nature, but i continue to belch blue two stroke exhaust in the backcountry. enjoyment versus moral obligation - endless debate. luckily, two strokes will be outlawed in a matter of years and four strokes will be the norm. small step in the right direction, perhaps? my tiny contribution on the daily basis is to keep the rooping around to a minimum when i get to the zone. more like using it as a workhorse/packmule. but lance is right, 100% absolutely - cannot stop snowboarding in the backcountry, whether hiking or sledding.

Ok, something needs to be done about our reliance on foreign oil and OPEC. Of course, we should make a giant tax on gas and huge tax breaks on hybrids and cars that have over X mpg. The only problem with this is that Bush is pushing hydrogen cars, and he avoids Hybrid technology. Now, hydrogen cars are more effieient than Hybrids, but no one has figured out a safe way to get hydrogen into a car from a pump, so no one has really developed an inexpensive hydrogen car, and I doubt that there will ever be a hydrogen sled.

Hybrid cars are where it's at right now. I dont know how many of you have looked into these cars and how they work, but its pretty ingenious. You put gas in the car, and it uses the gas to get moving. The engines are pretty small, and dont use much fuel anyway. The way it gets power is when you break. The car takes the friction created by the brakes and then uses that to charge the batteries. The batterys are used to supplement the engine and when the car is crusing.

Im not a rocket scientist or anything, but I would think a hybrid sled would be a great idear. You can take it out further and not worry about gas. Someone could figure out a way to take the movement of the belt to spin a bar that is used to charge the batteries. A little different than taking the energy from the brakes, but i think it could work. I doubt that anyone would develop this hybrid sled, but if anyone did, it would be fucking sick, but until then, hiking seems like a good idea.

Please ill23, what socialist mailing lists are you signed up for? Here are two examples to increase our chance of an economic collapse.
1.) 100% medical coverage provided by the government to all citizens (i.e. Canada)
2.) Government mandating privateer companies to produce a product which is not in demand. (i.e. hybrid, fuel-cell and hydrogen cars)
But ill23, I'm confused with you. You understand how supply and demand works with your situation; however, you do not do your part by owning a hybrid type car or getting rid of your snowmobile. It seems to me you love snowboarding in the backcountry but you ride up a mountain on your snowmobile slowly destroying what you love. I know it's hard but maybe it's time to give up something and hike up that mountain. You just maybe might get some satisfaction out of it and change your mind about this whole thing. As for your company, who knows, maybe you should look into engineering a cleaner burning snowmobile to make the future safe for your company. Snowboarding will always be snowboarding with or without snowmobiles.

No, we don't go on and hope for the best. For the love of god, if the pioneer snowboard companies thought this way about board building and bindings do you think the sport would have progressed to where it is now?

No, we don't hope for a magical well to appear but what we do is wait until they come up with affordable type hybrid cars that trigger the demand. Yes ill23, in 3 years snowmobiles will cost $18,000.00/$100 a day to run but you wont be seeing them in the back country hauling cameramen, pro snowboarders or just people like you and your friends going up for the day to ride. There's a good chance they may be restricted to your own property and more than likely they will be four strokes. I hope that this response helps you to choose and not wait for it to work itself out.

Good luck,

John

As long as there is racing, money will be spent to find a way. 4 cycle sleds with turbo's to start, then onto new technologies.

I wouldn't stress on it. Sleds are not the problem.

Lance,

I applaud you for bringing up a difficult yet important issue. I have been grappling with oil consumption for about a half a year now. I was first introduced to the theory of Peak Oil through the James Kunstler article in Rolling Stone. I did consequential research in hopes of finding some solid facts disclaiming Peak Oil. However, I became more convinced after reading the US DOE Report with the following introduction,

"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an
unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel
prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation,
the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation
options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial
impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

Other than traveling the world snowboarding, I have spent the last 6 years in the energy business in some form with companies like GE, GD, and now with a small renewables company in VT. Since being introduced to the Peak Oil theory, I have questioned friends in some pretty big oil firms (Saipem, BP, John Brown, etc) and have received unilateral responses that there is a serious race on to find the remaining oil.

Whether or not you choose to subscribe to the Peak Oil theory, it is clear that the World and Americans in general are far too dependent upon oil. Reducing your consumption is a very difficult endeavor and requires more than simply changing your vehicle. Its mind boggling the extent to our dependence, from plastics to agriculture to air travel. Airplanes use a phenomenal amount of oil. Just as you have conflicts with snowmobiles, I too have the conflict with cars. I love fast cars, its a borderline addiction. I have debated with friends what is the correct direction to take. At present, I am trying to change slowly, attempting to grow more food in a garden, walking or biking as much as possible, adding insulation to my house, and attempting to support companies like 7th Generation. Hopefully I will not be forced to change any faster than this. If you want to see some hopeful and intelligent solutions check out Winning the Oil Endgame by Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute.

peace - SBC