Arctic Cat has partnered with Amber Holt for a series of 2014 Arctic Cat Mountain snowmobile demo rides. If you want to ride with the Backcountry Basics expert, the following dates and locations are available:

March 9-11 – Beaver Creek Lodge – Logan Canyon, Utah (outside Logan Utah)

March 15-17 – West Yellowstone – Yellowstone Arctic Cat (Expo)

March 22-24 – Seven Devils Lodge – Council, Idaho (SW corner of Idaho and on Oregon border)

Once again the Keweenaw Research Center at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich. will host the SAE Snowmobile Challenge. This year’s event will be the biggest ever as a record 21 college and university teams have registered. The event takes place March 4-9, 2013.

Arctic Cat, BRP (Ski-Doo), Polaris, and Yamaha are gold level sponsors of the event. Staff from all four manufacturers will be involved, with many serving as judges and reviewers of the competition.

The intent of the competition is to design a snowmobile that will primarily be ridden on groomed snowmobile trails. The use of unreliable, expensive solutions is strongly discouraged! Modern snowmobiles are engineered to meet the current standards for noise and emissions. Teams are expected to add innovative solutions for improving on performance of the base sled that they start with. Design judges (written and oral) will be looking for innovations and incorporating that into their scores.

Snowmobile club volunteers from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Russia will be getting together June 5-9, 2012 in Sturbridge, Mass. at the International Snowmobile Congress (ISC).

The ISC is a place for sharing accomplishments, solving problems, discussing new ideas and talking about our sport. It’s the largest snowmobile meeting in the world and brings volunteers the world over to meet with snowmobile manufacturers, groomer manufacturers, journalists, government representatives and other sledheads.

Arctic Cat has teamed up with instructor Amber Holt to provide you with the opportunity to ride a 2013 Arctic Cat “M” snowmobile and learn a few things at the same time.

The demo rides with Holt are going on now until March 31, 2012 in West Yellowstone, Mont. You can ride any one of Arctic Cat’s deep-powder models, including the M800, M1100, M1100 Turbo, XF High Country 800 & 1100 Turbo. If you’re anywhere near West Yellowstone, you’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity – no matter what color sled you normally ride.

To sign up for a demo, contact Holt at BackCountryBasics@yahoo.com or call 509-733-646.

Clarkson Univeristy won the 2012 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challange. (image courtesy Michigan Technological University/Keweenaw Research Center)

Clarkson University of Potsdam, NY, captured first place in the 2012 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge, which drew to a close March 10 at Michigan Technological University.

Kettering University, of Flint Mich., placed second, with the University of Wisconsin-Platteville earning third place in the internal-combustion category.

The University of Alaska-Fairbanks won the zero-emissions category.

The Clean Snowmobile Challenge is a collegiate design competition of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Engineering students from participating schools re-engineer a stock snowmobile, while preserving the riding quality demanded by snowmobile enthusiasts. A total of 12 university teams participated in the internal combustion category.

The Challenge’s zero emissions category, for battery-powered sleds, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. NSF uses electric snowmobiles while conducting atmospheric research in pristine arctic locations. The electric or zero emissions challenge is running up to 20 miles with one battery charge. Five teams participated in the zero emission category.