Out in the Western Alaska Bush where gasoline prices are running near $6 per gallon, Tesoro Iron Dog racer Brad Reich wonders whether he might be forced to cut back on training this year for the world's longest, toughest snow machine race.
"Last year I put about 7,300 miles on my machine," said the mayor of the small village of Kiana. "You average it out; it's pretty spendy."
When snow conditions are good, Reich figures he gets 95 to 100 miles on a 10-gallon tank of gas. At 10 miles to the gallon, 7,300 miles at today's gas prices in Kiana translates to a cost of about $4,300.
The cost has Reich and a lot of others thinking about something that never entered the equation for most people when shopping for a snowmachine only a few years ago -- fuel mileage.
Riders who used to devote most of their time to discussing horsepower, deep-snow performance, mountain-climbing capabilities or suspension effectiveness now find themselves engaged in discussions about things like EFI, SDI and four-stroke.
• EFI is electronic fuel injection, a technological improvement in fuel delivery that first appeared as a replacement for carburetors in two-cycle snowmobile engines years ago, but has been tweaked over the years to become more efficient.
• SDI is semi-direction injection of fuel, a newer technology first introduced to make snowmobiles run cleaner to meet environmental standards. It has the added benefit of making the machines much more fuel efficient.
• Four-stroke is the camshaft and valve-controlled engine similar to what is found in most automobiles. Four-strokes burn cleaner and get better gas mileage than the valveless, two-stroke, oil-and-gas burning engine that powered snowmobile evolution to the point it is today.
Unfortunately, early four-stroke engines had a huge liability. Valves, cams and associated four-stroke parts increase engine weight. As a general rule, heavy snowmobiles don't perform as well as light snowmobiles in deep snow or in the mountains, and heaven forbid the owner get stuck in waist-deep snow.
Wrestling a 450-pound two-stroke sled free from deep snow is a laborious task for one rider. Trying to free a 600-pound or larger behemoth takes more than one rider -- or a lot of shoveling or building an evacuation ramp.
Fortunately, as technology steadily improves, four-stroke weights have been coming down.
"I wish I would have bought the four-stroke," admitted Dan Gabrysak at the Yentna Station Roadhouse miles up the Yentna River from Wasilla. "Who knew gas was going to do this."
The first gas Gabrysak had delivered in November cost him $4.60 a gallon. He expects he'll resell fuel at more than $5 a gallon this year.
At those prices, fuel economy starts to matter, though Gabrysak said he still expects to see a lot of riders this winter on machines getting only seven to 10 miles per gallon. And he isn't anticipating a major drop in business.
"People are going to want to play anyway," said the owner of one of the major stops on the popular run from Big Lake to Skwentna. "I think I'll probably sell more food than fuel, but a lot of people just want to ride. They've got to get out of Dodge in the winter.''
True enough, agreed avid snowmachine rider and longtime industry observer Joe Westfall.
When the long, cold dark settles over Alaska, he said, the choices are to embrace it by getting outside or staying inside even more and letting the cabin fever worsen by the day.
That said, he added, when he hooks his fifth-wheel trailer to his one-ton "dualie" truck, knowing he'll be getting only about seven miles per gallon, and heads out for a weekend packing a couple of snowmobiles that get less than 10 mpg, it's hard not to think about fuel costs.
"I decided instead of staying in lodges, I'm going to buy a toy hauler," he said by means of justifying the fifth-wheel. He's not sure what he'll do to justify the expenditure on fuel for the sleds. He might just decide to throttle back on the riding a bit to save money, though new, more efficient technology is tempting.
"The two-cylinder Yamaha, I think, that's going to be a good machine," he said.
The 2008 500cc Yamaha Phazer cranks out only 80 horsepower, but the 515-pound weight is comparable to that of many two-cycle machines; it gets good gas mileage, too, and the engine is expected to last years.
Durability is one of the big things four-cycle engines have going for them, while the lack of weight remains the big factor for two-cycles.
Crankcase-free, valveless two-cycle engines lubricated with oil injected into the fuel are inherently lighter, but Westfall thinks the new four-cycle engines are competitive.
"I think a lot of people are moving into the four-strokes,'' Westfall said.
Many in and around the snowmobile industry laughed when Yamaha launched its RX-1 four-stroke-powered hot rod five years ago and walked away from two-cycles, he said. They're not laughing anymore.
"Yamaha sales are up," Westfall said.
What remains to be seen is whether other manufactures will follow Yamaha down the four-stroke road.
Arctic Cat unveiled a high-powered Jaguar Z1 for 2007 with a 1,056cc, 125 horsepower four-stroke, but most of the company's machines remain powered by two-cycles.
And Ski-Doo -- a subsidary of Canada's Bombardier Inc. -- is pushing cleaner, more powerful, high-mileage two-cycles. A group of engineering students from the University of Idaho, including one Alaskan, this year used a modified Ski-Doo two-cycle to win the Clean Snowmobile Challenge sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Polaris, the last of the big four manufacturers, appears to be following Ski-Doo's lead with what it calls clean fire injection, or CFI. The Polaris 600 H.O. IQ with CIF won SnowTrax Television's 2007 Real World Sled of the Year award.
SnowGoer magazine, which also raved about the Polaris 600, scored it high for power (the H.O. stands for "high output'') and improved gas mileage, but noted that the Ski-Doos with SDI still rule in that category -- usually getting better than 20 mpg.
"One guy up here (in the Kotzebue-Kiana area) was getting 26,'' Reich noted.
Though it was long assumed four-cycle engines were by design both cleaner and more fuel-efficient than two-cycles, new technologies are altering that thinking. There is, however, one apparent downside to improved fuel mileage in the EFIs and the four-strokes at this stage in the game.
The fuel system on the Ski-Doo is totally controlled by battery-driven electronics. If the battery goes, so does the engine. Reich said local trappers using the machines have taken to removing the batteries and keeping them warm in extreme cold weather to ensure the sleds will run again.
The four-stroke Yamahas are similarly battery controlled, but the Polaris 600 is an exception. A larger flywheel and electronic ignition system enable it to get enough electricity out of the engine to power the electronics, but it remains dependent on all those electronics.
How all of this works out in the long run remains to be seen.
Snowmobile riders, particularly those who venture deep into the Alaska wilderness, are suspicious of parts they can't easily fix. Former snowmobile dealer Jim Wilke said he used to be able to talk to Bush snowmachiners by phone, get a good idea of what was wrong with their machines, and send parts from Anchorage for repairs.
That just isn't possible with the fancy new electronics, he said. They need to be wired to a diagnostic machine that can search for faulty computer chips. That makes Bush repairs more difficult.
On the other hand, automobiles have been using similar technologies, in increasingly sophisticated forms, for more than a decade, and cars just keep getting more reliable.
And Westfall believes that whether Alaskans like it or not, gasoline prices are going to drive the industry toward ever-more-sophisticated machinery in the search for fuel efficiency.
"It'll impact it,'' he said. "No doubt.''
Not that he expects this to discourage snowmobilers any more than high gas prices.
"Just throw more on the credit card,'' he said. "That's what happens with a lot of people, and then try to work out from under the debt."
The cheapest new snowmobiles these days barely get under the $6,000 mark, and for high-mileage four-stroke or SDI sleds, prices generally start around $8,000 and head up. This can make for expensive recreation, but anyone who has spent much seat time on one of the machines in Alaska knows how addictive the sport can be.
First, there's the exhilaration of speed and freedom. Many snowmobiles today will go faster than your car, and in many places they are unrestrained by speed limits or other traffic controls.
More than that, though, they open up an Alaska few people would get to see in any other way. An hour on a snowmobile in winter can take you to places that would be impossible to reach on foot in a day in the summer or would, alternatively, cost hundreds of dollars to access by airplane.
That's why Westfall and others agree that no matter what happens with fuel prices, snowmachining will remain a major form of winter recreation in the 49th state.
"They're gonna go," Westfall said. "It won't matter if gas goes to $4 a gallon in Anchorage."
Or the $5.75 in Kiana.
As Reich noted, gas prices might force him to cut back a little on his riding, "but "as soon as I get my (new) machine, I'll be out running.''
And hey, he added, it could be worse. Not far to the north in Ambler, fuel is going for $8.68 a gallon.
Those prices are positively European.
"Fuel prices in mainland Europe average $6.40 per gallon and about $8.25 per gallon in Sweden," said Ed Klim, president of the International Snowmobilers Association. "(But) sales of snowmobiles in Europe have increased 10 to 14 percent each year for the past six years. More Europeans are snowmobiling."
Outdoors editor Craig Medred can found at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.
