You ride snowmobiles when there is snow and ATV's when there isn't. Just my opinion, but snowmobiles are a lot more fun.

This was a good snow year and I've put more miles on my sled in two months than I put on my ATV the past two years, riding 9 to 10 months out of the year. I'm not really radical, but I did put just over 80 miles on my snowmobile last Saturday. My neighbor told me he and his buddies took a 150-mile ride on Sunday. Of course, they are going 100 mph at times, so it wasn't a particularly long day.

I make this point because I'm hearing that ATV registrations are starting to exceed snowmobile registration in this area. Maybe so, but I suspect the trails see more snowmoible traffic during snow season than they do ATV traffic for the whole year. I stopped at two bars on Saturday. There were over 100 sleds at one of them and nearly that many at the other. You had to park your sled so far away, it was a long hike to get a... cup of hot chocolate.

whaleeditedbymoderator's point about us having a good trail system in WI is right on. Both snowmobiles and ATV's share the same trails with no problems for the most part. In fact, some trails are only open from Dec. 1 through March 31. The swamps are frozen and ATV's don't do any damage then. The only problem is that when temps reach the upper twenties, the snow gets soft and ATV's can really tear up the snowpack on the trails. They are looking to solve that with what they call the "28-degree rule." When the temps reach 28 degrees, the trails close to ATV's. I think its a good rule. It keeps the peace.

So, I buy three snowmobile and two ATV stickers for all my machines, and feel it's money well spent.