John Prusak

As strange – and maybe even counter-intuitive – as it sounds, Ski-Doo has once again made snowmobiling easier for the riders who seem determined to make it as difficult as possible. Many snowmobilers try to simplify the sport by sticking to groomed trails they know, riding in low-traffic areas or on weekdays, and carefully dialing in their suspension for the best possible ride quality and handling. That all seems wise. But some extreme mountain riders are different. Way different.

Ski-Doo has been leading the charge in recent years in creating narrower mountain sleds for chasing ultimate mobility when slicing between the trees or trying to hang onto an edge on a nasty sidehill. In model year 2022, the brand took select Summit models down to startlingly narrow 34-inch ski stance, but critics complained that they couldn’t take full advantage because the vehicles would get hung up on the body panels when fully tilted.

It started with a childhood dream. Lorne Steeves grew up in a snowmobiling household. His father, Bob Steeves, was an early snowmobiling pioneer in New Brunswick who always managed to keep the family well stocked with Arctic Cat snowmobiles. “We were as poor as church mice when I was a young boy, but dad always found a way to have a snowmobile in the garage or out back,” Lorne Steeves recalled.