Behind the Lens: Muskoka Freerider & the Freerider Filmz Crew

Ladies and gentlemen, we're still here at the Alberta Snowmobile Show in Edmonton, 2024. We've got the Freerider Filmz crew with us. Things are super chill right now, so we thought, hey, why not hop on a podcast and shoot a little pod. For anyone who's just tuning in, trying to figure out what we're going to talk about: what's the thing we can tell the person scrolling through right now, trying to decide if they should stop and listen to the conversation we're about to have today?

Me and Dawson are getting a jump on our mod sled competition, starting off with the physical competition of our arm wrestle.

Oh, okay. A little behind the scenes. We're going to do an arm wrestle today.

Everybody's hearing about Revelstoke, so this is how you're going to learn about how it is, how to get there, how to plan a trip around it, how it works.

Yeah, especially coming across the border. If you haven't done it before, it's a little scary the first time.

First time, yeah. But it was easy.

Awesome. And then anything else we can think of?

Who's Muskoka's idol that he wants to ride with?

Yeah, everyone wants to ride with him. Who does he want to ride with? There you go. And we'll get a little bit of behind the scenes of what it's actually like riding with Matt, versus what we just see in the videos. I don't know what that sound is. Something's fired up.

But we're here, we've been here all weekend. A little different setup this year. We're a little more open than we were last year, more of a chill vibe. You guys brought the whole nine yards. You brought the suitcases, the minivan, everything. Came very prepared.

Came more prepared. I think last year we brought like 10 hats or something. Last year we kind of just showed up, threw the feelers out and saw what it was like.

Right. This year you set it up and I just showed up.

Yeah, we worked with some more stuff. So next year we'll have to step it up a little bit more.

Definitely. So we had a fun episode that we recorded earlier today. I think we dubbed it the Wives of Revy.

Oh God.

And these guys pretty much said, hey, do we at least get to look at the questions beforehand, just to make sure we're still going to be married after this episode goes live? I said no. So it'll be a surprise.

I'm curious on that one. We might have to pre-screen that before it gets released.

Possibly. Except this one will go live after that one, so we'll see. So anyways, we wanted to get the boys together. We've got snow falling in the mountains right now, and we just want to get the sledding community up to speed on what's going on with the Freerider Filmz crew.

So as far as introductions go: Matt, Muskoka Freerider, the first returning guest on the Sledder Cast. We'll clap it up for that. There we go. But let's start here with Hugo. Give the people what they want. Who's Hugo?

Originally from Quebec, obviously, you can tell by my accent. I moved to BC five years ago, and I've been in Revelstoke full time for four years. Just living the dream there. I moved to enjoy the outdoors: mountain biking, sledding.

And as far as being in Matt's videos, how often are you in there, would you say? How often are we getting Hugo?

Pretty often these days.

Pretty often these days. So the most memorable part of Hugo in the videos for me: I'm a big cold plunger, and when you guys had the cabin episode and cut the tracks in the pond out front, Hugo just soaked it right up in the cold plunge. That was my first Hugo experience.

Yeah, and I was able to convince Dawson to do it too. He went right in.

I don't know if that was the best idea. But our next cold plunge is going to be Hugo jumping in the river with his snowmobile gear and trying to survive the night.

Like a real-life scenario.

Yeah. Can't wait for it.

That'll be awesome. He's the man to do it, if anyone's going to do something like that.

I should probably do it with him, but I don't think I'd survive.

No, I think you should.

We'll try to also make it a surprise for the group, to make it more realistic. Like the night we spend, also not prepared. You don't want to cheat, so make it as realistic as possible.

Well, this will go live in probably January, so maybe we need to coordinate on that.

I don't think it matters if people know we're going to do it. We're just not going to be prepared to do it. It'll just be a random time.

Cool. Okay, obviously Muskoka, Matt here, back again, still doing good.

Good to be back.

And we've got another Matt here. The second Matt of the group.

The second Matt, yeah.

Matt D. Matt D and Matt D.

Yeah, I like to throw everyone off all the time. But yeah, Dubois. The real French name, but I barely speak French. I'm the Quebecer that's very English. They like to call me the Frenchman, but yeah, from Quebec. I just joined the boys out west. It's only been about three, four winters, something like that. Me and Matt have known each other from riding for, we figured out yesterday, like eight years.

We were actually talking about it with your wives, how crazy it is how you guys met randomly, snowmobiling. Was it the Chic-Chocs?

Yep, exactly.

What if you'd just chosen to stay in that day and didn't go? Would this relationship exist? Most likely not, right? So there you go.

Basically, the reason I started going to Revy was because he was there. So everything stemmed from that one day we spent in a drainage together in the Chic-Chocs.

And it turned into this. Now you're flying all over the country with each other.

We've come a long way.

What do you guys do outside of sledding? The question is, what are you doing that allows you to spend as much time as you do sledding? Hugo?

I'm retired.

Retired. He works for fun on the side.

Too busy.

So what did you do before you retired?

I was in the military, and then I also did a bunch of real estate, and started a bunch of companies. Restoration, construction. I tried to touch a bit of everything.

Nice. So now you're just living the life. You've got to get that blueprint printed out for the rest of us to figure that program out. The Hugo retirement plan, snowmobiler edition. Cool. So fully retired, living right there in Revy, right downtown. Heck yeah. Okay, Matthew. As Chloe calls you.

Yeah, I think anyone listening might already know from the past, but we move the dirt. We scoop the dirt, we dump the dirt in the summer, and then in the winter we do this.

And you work with your dad.

Work with the old man. I don't have too much responsibility right now, which is how I can go sledding all winter long. There might come a time where I have to take over some more responsibility, but until then I'm going to enjoy the freedom I have to do this.

Heck yeah. All right, Matt.

I do parking lot management. We take care of condominiums, parking, stuff like that. So we're the guys that give out parking tickets and get everyone angry. But what lets me get sledding is we also do line painting, so parking lot line paint and stuff, which obviously we're not doing in the winter. So it's basically a slow season for us, and everything else can be run from anywhere. So I get to get away very easily in the winter.

So Dana was saying you guys purchased the family business. How was that? Was that a good, easy transaction?

It's like anything in family. It was fairly easy. It's just, when your parents have had it for 40-plus years, the transition of them letting go of control is always...

Are you the only child?

No.

So a little bit of dynamics there.

That wasn't much of an issue. It was more just letting go. When you've done something for so long in your life and then you just give it up, it's hard. So we bought the business, I guess it was a few years ago now officially, and we've been transitioning everything from there, updating and keeping things modern, which lets me get away. Everything used to be a paper trail, and now everything's computerized. I basically designed the company to allow me to live this life.

Sneaky. Did Mom and Dad know that beforehand?

No, definitely not.

How can I do that with excavators?

Computers, AI, robots. Can you clone yourself as a robot?

I don't know if we're there yet. Maybe buy one of those Tesla robots they're coming out with.

I hear the blender going. What is that? That's a blender? No way. That's awesome. Cool. So we're going to bring in a special guest here in a second, old Dawson, and we're going to talk some sleds. Let's talk setup, everything but the lightweight mod stuff, with you guys first, and then we'll transition into that and bring in our boy Dawson. Sound good?

So Hugo, what's the setup look like this year?

Pretty much stock. I just do an end bar setup, because I'm short and I like the way it feels. And this year it's an 858 Cat, and a Boost 165.

Okay, so you're Arctic Cat and Polaris. Last season you were just Polaris?

No, Ski-Doo.

Ski-Doo. So this year you're playing around with the 858.

I'll be running all of them this year.

You've got your Ski-Doo as well from last year.

He's got more snowmobiles than me.

I wouldn't say that.

More running snowmobiles.

Okay, there we go. Playing around with all the brands. That's awesome. Okay, Matt.

This year we're going for the Cat as well. Pretty excited about that.

So this is going live, like I said, in January. You haven't really mentioned anything about a Cat, right?

No, I guess not so much. I assume it'll be in the garage when this video is released, because if it's not, then something went wrong. Or maybe my bank account ran dry. But hopefully we've got some seat time on the Cat by now and we're loving it.

Have you been on the Catalyst platform yet?

No, I haven't ridden it at all, really.

So what is it, just something different?

I want to see if it's all hyped up. Sorry, I had some people waving.

Oh, you've got some fans.

Yeah. I think the chassis is going to be good. I think I'm just going to miss the power of the turbo, so maybe we'll have to throw a turbo onto it later in the season. But we're going to run it bone stock to start off, see what works and what doesn't, and go from there.

Awesome. And you'll have pretty much the same fleet as last year, minus a sled or two.

Yeah, we got rid of the 9R, which I might miss in the spring low-snow conditions, but I also replaced the green 154 Expert with a new one. On that one we'll pretty much leave it stock. Just do the bumpers and probably that's it. It comes with some good suspension this year.

Okay, that's on the Ski-Doo. So you've got the Cat and the Ski-Doo this year. Nice. Okay, Matt.

Back to a Boost again. I've got a '25 Boost coming, a 155 Khaos. That's what I've been running the past couple years. I don't think I'd go turbo anymore. And I only run one sled. One and done for me. So that's kind of my all-around.

It's funny that he chooses a Polaris. Reliability.

I know, I know. But I have a buddy that owns a lot of sleds, so if it breaks down...

You've got something. You've got spares between you two.

I think there's something running. Geez.

You probably have more sleds on the floor than the dealership there, right?

Yeah, basically.

Start running a rental.

Well, I could rent them out if they were actually running. That's the problem. But no, I joke around a lot, but the Polarises have honestly been pretty good for me, besides the clutching issues over the last couple years. The 9R didn't have a single issue other than the clutch. And then the Boost blows reeds.

I'm too scared to jinx myself, but my Boost was great last year. No clutch problem, no reed problem.

I mean, it's different. Dawson had all sorts of issues, right?

Mine was great.

Well, don't get too close to him then. Stay away.

I'm just not going to let him touch my sled.

So out of curiosity, Matt. No OEM contract?

No OEM contracts here, no.

Which allows you to speak very freely. Have you gotten a phone call, text, email or DM from an unnamed OEM that says, hey, why don't you cool it down a little bit?

No. I'm pretty cut and dry about it, but I don't think I push it too far. And even if I did, what are they going to say? I'm definitely not going to be able to go to a manufacturer now and say, hey, do you guys want to work together, because I've probably talked too much. But that's all right.

But you talk equal.

I talk equal.

You're definitely not playing favoritism at all. You're just saying what you're experiencing, right?

There's maybe still some Ski-Doo brand loyalty there from growing up being a Ski-Doo guy, but I just tell it how it is about all the brands. There's probably some more fun poked at Polaris, just because it's kind of the thing to do. We all make fun of each other. That's just how it is.

Exactly. Okay, so as far as the mods go. We got back from Hay Days a couple months ago, and you showcased your Ski-Doo, the mod sled.

The mod sled. I went the extreme opposite way.

And you drove, right? You came down to Hay Days with it, so that's how you had your sled there. You took it back home.

Yep.

Okay. Let's bring Dawson in. He's got a couple of the boys with him. We'll see if we can catch his attention here.

I'll swap with him.

Game time. All right, who's swapping? We've got a swapper. Okay, don't go too far.

Oh boy, it's a competition.

It's not even a competition.

Before we begin, we're going to do an arm wrestle right here.

Wait, what?

We're doing an arm wrestle. And whoever wins has the lighter sled.

I don't know about all that.

All right, here we go. We've got an arm wrestle going on right here. This is the first arm wrestle on the podcast. You guys know the rules? Can we be fair here? Okay. Let's get ages first.

24.

30.

24 and 30. All right, do we have old man strength here, or do we have the young buck? We're going to find out. Here we go. Three, two, one, go. Go! We're even, we're even. We're getting an over-the-top wrist action from Muskoka here. Fingers are tightly gripped. Let's go! Are you guys trying?

Yeah, we're trying.

I think I am.

You haven't moved an inch either way. What is going on?

I can't get him. I can't get him.

Someone's playing. Who's playing here? It's a tie.

Every time I let off, he lets off.

Come on. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero. Oh my goodness. It's going to come down to the mod sleds. Holy smokes. I have literally never seen that in an arm wrestle.

I think he maybe could've gotten there. I was trying to get him, and I was powering out too.

Man, wow.

Okay, that's going to lead us into our friendly competition here. Dawson, I want you to give us a brief intro. Who are you, and what are you doing here? The man with the hair.

I'm just here to ride sleds and have fun.

So Dawson's the dude with the hair, just in case you're wondering who this guy is without a helmet on. Dawson in the films: long hair, part of the crew. We saw a lot more of you this season.

Yeah, you're going to keep seeing more of me in the upcoming videos.

I can see Matt over there thinking about it.

I'm like, am I breathing into the mic here? Am I okay? But yeah, we've been riding with Dawson for a while, definitely more over the last couple years. We're kind of shoulder season riding partners. We're all-season friends, but we both have such big groups that we don't have the opportunity to get out much mid-season.

That's the tough part, mid-season.

He's got a group, I've got a group. And I don't like big groups.

He likes three guys.

The 15-person groups, I'm usually not there. Not a fan of that.

Okay, so let's talk about your sled. We'll overlay some video here, and I think we also have some from Hay Days so we can overlay the Ski-Doo back home. But Dawson, walk us through the build you have going on. What you've done to it, what your overall weight is, where you've been able to clean up the most weight. Just give us a walkthrough.

This is my sled from last year. It's a '24 165 Boost. Over the summer I stripped it down to a bare bulkhead and tunnel and started fresh. I swapped every single bolt on the sled to titanium. I built a 900 motor that I sent away and got ported, and I got the ECU mapped with a C12, a 50/50 C12 race gas tune. Then a carbon skid, carbon front end, carbon bumper, carbon belt guard. I'd say honestly the two biggest weight-saving spots were probably the can and the skid. And the track actually saved quite a bit, like 7 lb.

Sorry, what track do you have on there?

It's just a Camso track.

Ski-Doo track. It is a Ski-Doo track.

That's all right, it works good. It's a good track. I'm man enough to admit it.

I just had to say something.

That's fair.

And it weighed in at 387.4 lb dry weight, no fluids.

How much weight did you knock off total?

See, I didn't actually weigh one bone stock yet. I was going to weigh mine, but then it had other stuff added on to it, and I wanted to see it compared to stock. My dad's sled is an identical sled in stock form, so I'm going to fill them both up with fluids, ready to ride, weigh them both, and see how much weight I saved over a bone stock one.

What was the target you were trying to hit?

I just wanted to break 400. That's what I really wanted.

Okay. Anything else big that you haven't done yet?

Not anything big. There's still a couple little things I've got to get, like my clutches machined, and maybe do some spindles.

And did you mention the A-arms?

Yeah, I think I did.

So obviously I've never gone to that extent. What's the general take on that? What's the vibe you've heard from people? That it's just going to shatter, that if it does go, it's just going to blow?

The A-arms have been very controversial. Most people say there's no way you can ride that in early season, they're just going to snap. Which isn't why we built them. And personally I'm not too worried about them. They're pretty beefy. The top one is thin and flexy, but it doesn't take a ton of stress. And obviously if you smoke a rock, it's going to break. It's going to go either way.

Doesn't matter.

The only downfall is that it breaks instead of bends, I guess, so it's more of a pain to get the sled out. But we've done enough of that with this guy back here breaking A-arms.

Oh really?

Yeah, we learned that one pretty quick.

Nice. Okay, so Matt.

That's kind of annoying, it sounds loud. So we've got the 165 Turbo. It's a '23 actually, a couple seasons old, but we got it at the end of '23, so it has, I think, 2,000 km on it right now. What would you have for miles on your Polaris?

2,300 miles.

Okay, so more than what I had. And we went kind of full-out mod sled on it, but a little different than what Dawson did. I haven't really gotten into the motor stuff yet. There's just not that much you can do weight-loss-wise on the motor, because of all the electronics. You can't really mess with them, like the magneto and all that. I did contemplate shaving down my clutches and dropping some rotating mass there, but I haven't yet. We've done a lot of custom carbon fiber parts, which has kind of been the focus of my build.

And you yourself have done a lot of the work. Obviously we've seen the Instagram and the YouTube stuff.

Yeah, we started off with the simple, basic parts and worked our way up to the full hood, which turned out a lot better than I expected, which is cool.

It looks good. And now you've got the mold. You had some people at Hay Days asking, are you going to start selling these now?

No, not going to sell any parts. But I do have the molds, which was where all the work was. Making the parts is pretty simple, really, and not that expensive. So I'll definitely make myself some spare parts for when I smash things or they just wear out. With the carbon fiber, I did the pyramid structure, so there's a lot of stress on that, and it's just bolts that hold it on. I'm pretty sure they're going to oval out quickly, so I'll make quite a few extras of those to replace them as they wear.

But we'll do some aftermarket stuff as well for the Ski-Doo. There aren't that many aftermarket options, though. For the lightweight Polaris there's a ton of parts out there, but for the Ski-Doo there's almost nothing. That was kind of one of the reasons I went with the Ski-Doo. One of my big weight-loss things was the skid. Fortunately they make that for the Ski-Doo. And then also the can. Those are always the two easiest weight-loss things. I've talked a lot over the years about running cans, and I think so has Dawson, but it's kind of a necessary evil when you're doing a project like this.

It's a quiet can.

Yeah, we did go with the quiet cans, titanium. It'd just be crazy to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to make this light sled and then leave this big can on it.

For sure.

So we've got the can and the skid. Is there any other aftermarket stuff I have on there right now? I'm going to do the lightweight brake rotor, from ZRP I think. And I've been talking with Carbon Pursuit about a base for my seat, because I switched to the small Ski-Doo tank. I've kind of got a way to hold the seat on right now, but it wouldn't last, because it's actually just double-sided tape on the ABS plastic. So Carbon Pursuit is making something up for me, I believe. That'll be pretty cool. I was going to attempt the carbon myself, but I just have so much other stuff to do. He kind of mentioned it, so I said, yeah, let's do it.

And then we dropped out the big gauge, which was some good weight savings, and the hood itself was probably 10 lb. So I think it's going to work pretty well. We'll probably throw a tune on it and do some clutching, but nothing extreme like sending the motor out to be ported. I think we'll just do a pump gas kind of deal.

Sure. All right, sorry, total weight so far. Where were you at?

I don't know exactly. I had it weighed and it was 413 dry weight. I'd really like to get it down sub 400. 13 lb at this point is still a ton of weight. If I go to a 154 track I could probably get really close, so that's probably going to happen, and I'll swap out the 165 skid for a 154.

Cool. So obviously we're not comparing apples to apples. Dawson's starting off with a lighter sled with the Polaris. It sounds like he's probably going to end up lighter, and you're probably going to end up with more total weight shaved, right?

Yeah, I would agree. I want to say I'm going to be somewhere around 70 lb of weight loss.

Awesome. That's quite a lot.

Yeah. Which means I'll have decreased fuel capacity. Dawson still has the full fuel tank, 40 L. I've got basically half that, at 19 L. I think the Boost is still going to burn its fuel a lot quicker, so I should be able to keep up with him and not run out of fuel, I hope.

And this particular sled is going to burn more fuel than a stock Boost, which already burns a ridiculous amount of fuel. I'm probably going to be packing 30 liters on my tunnel on top of that.

And Dawson still has the 7S display in his sled, where I dropped out my big gauge. But if I had the buddy tracking system in the Ski-Doo, I wouldn't drop my gauge either.

Sure. He just started with the lighter sled.

There are certain function things I could have dropped more weight out of, but function over weight.

Exactly.

Once you get that 7S, it's kind of hard to not have it. It's a game changer.

Well, cool. Any more questions for Dawson on the mods? Do we still have Matt over there? Matt's over there. Cool, well, that's our mod section. All right, Dawson, you came in, you conquered.

I wish we would have had a winner.

Conquered what? You didn't quite conquer. You didn't either.

Hey, we're going to settle this on the snow.

Easy. I'm not scared.

Get your reps in, so we don't end in a freaking tie again. We need a true winner here. Thanks. Awesome. Look, he's got the zip ties right in his pocket. He's ready for more mods.

You never know when someone needs a good zip tie.

Okay, all right, well, we've got Matt back. There goes the blender again. Okay, so we're back. You missed it. I don't know if you caught the arm wrestle.

I saw Matt lose, is what it is.

All right, so as far as the point of view of snowmobiling with Matt. I asked you guys this question earlier, but the general public gets a certain version of Matt, and that's handpicked. Matt's doing the edits. He's controlling what we're seeing. What's the behind the scenes version that you guys see, that might be a little bit different than what everyone else sees with Matt on the snow?

Not that different, I would say.

Optimistic.

Matt makes you wonder if you're going to make it home at night.

Oh, he's that guy, huh?

No, but he's very good at pushing you, within your ability. He's not going to send you somewhere you're going to be screwed, but he's not going to let you easily back out of something either. Or he'll chirp you on the radio and be like, what are you doing down there?

Sometimes I take it a little too far. But over the years, getting to know each other, you're able to take it further with those people, because you know how they're going to react. With guys I haven't ridden with, maybe I'm a little too optimistic about what their skill set's going to be, so I just throw them right into the fire, and then it's like, okay, no, we have to put the fire out.

But again, that's half their fault. Some people, the first time you ride with them, you ask their riding ability and they say, oh yeah, I'm this level. And then you bring them to what you consider that level, and it turns out your idea of that level is totally different than the next guy's. We've seen that a couple times. I can remember one offhand, someone who came filming with us. I'm not going to call anyone's name out, so I'll leave it at that.

Is it always like, what's over that next ridge, what's on the other side of that canyon, let's go find out?

Definitely a lot of that.

Cool.

You know, I think we should ask Jason that question too.

Should we? Want to bring him over? We could ask all three of them. We don't have to use it all, but it might be entertaining to see what they have to say. Dawson! All three of you, come here. We'll put the mic in between you two. You may not hear us very well, but just share it. Sit down.

So we've got Jordan, Jason and Dawson jumping in to answer this question quick as well. I just thought somebody might have an entertaining answer. Trevor wants to know the behind the scenes, what we don't see in the videos, of what it's like riding with Matt for a day. Because we get to see what he picks and chooses. We don't get to see what he edits out.

So what is it like riding with this guy? Did you guys hear that?

Loud, yeah. We did.

You go first. Wait, we didn't get Dawson. You weren't here for this question, right?

No. Okay, so that's a good one. That's a hard one. You don't edit a lot of stuff out. You're pretty realistic with most of it. There are times when it's like, wait, wait, wait, I've got to change my batteries, or group shots once in a while, but that's like any filming gig.

Right. But it's every day.

Every time, yeah.

When you're with him, you kind of already know that. That's part of the program. We just expect it. He's usually the last one at the parking lot every day. We have to tie his shoes and pack his lunch for him.

Pack a lunch for him, is that right?

Yeah. He comes unprepared, doesn't have food, and his sled might be falling apart and getting repaired in the parking lot in the morning.

It's happened. There's time to do it at night, but why would you?

But these days are legit. The nice thing is that he doesn't just stop on the mountain and say, well, we've got to go get this shot. It's just legit go ride, and capture what you can. He doesn't sacrifice everyone's day and everyone's life to get the right shot. He just gets as many shots as he can, and that's what keeps it authentic.

That's authentic.

That's what makes it fun to be there.

And there's a difference between purposefully capturing something and mostly just documenting, which I think is where people can see this is real, this is natural. We're just going.

Yeah, the people love it. Give the people what they want.

I think one thing the public maybe doesn't see, well, maybe you've captured it a little bit, but I feel like you're pretty hard on Jerry.

I definitely can be.

So do you tone it down, off or on camera?

Sometimes on camera I give him the gears, but off camera sometimes too. I'd say I can be a little bit of a jerk to him, for sure, and he definitely doesn't deserve it. That's just father and son things.

Anything you need to tell Dad right now?

I love you, Dad. So sorry.

Cool. You're better now.

I feel like as you're getting older you're starting to understand a little bit, but a couple years ago you were a little hard on him, for sure.

For sure. I could be hard on my brother too.

Why is that?

Once you hit 30, it just makes sense. You get smarter.

Get wise. Cool. Well, great, thanks for popping in, guys. Appreciate it.

So it's always on our bucket list every year, and we haven't made it up to Revy yet. This is the year. I'm ashamed to say I always say this is the year. But generally speaking, as an American going across the border to go snowmobiling in Revy, what are some tips? What advice can we give that person that's going to make their experience the best it possibly can be? Where should we start? Is there a website we can go to? Are there cameras we should be watching? Is it the snowmobile clubs? What do you guys think?

In Revelstoke, the snowmobile club does a pretty good job. On the website there's a lot of information: cameras for all the riding zones, the grooming. It's easier than what people usually think.

That's what I was going to say. I think people probably overthink it a bit. Just come to town. You could stay in any hotel, or if you really want to ride from where you're staying, you could do that too. There are a couple options just out of town on Highway 1 to the west. If you're coming to town for the first time, I definitely recommend getting a guide. Great Canadian Tours has all the guides, so pretty much just phone them up.

What's your number? Can we just call you and have you be the guide?

I get that question a lot, but legally I cannot be a guide.

Good answer.

So even if you just phone up Great Canadian Tours, I'm sure they would be happy to point you in the right direction. But you could also just Google the location of the Revelstoke Snowmobile Club. That's the parking lot to ride from.

They do a really good job. Even just Boulder Mountain is very simple, it's well marked. The trail up to the cabin is like the base point.

Again, a guide is for sure how you're going to get the most out of your trip and guarantee good snow, but Boulder Mountain is a very simple, nicely groomed trail.

In the morning it's nice. And then it gets tracked out, because there are a lot of people now. It's a popular spot.

And for a lot of us out west, we don't see a lot of the fees. We pull over off the side of the road, go pick our mountain and go play for the day. But there are access fees to be paid for the most part, right?

There are some spots where you can just drop off the side of the road and head up a logging road, but you're going to be riding some really crappy trails to do that. If you want to ride the nice groomed trails to get to the good stuff, it was $25 last year just for a day pass. You can buy a season pass as well. I think the day pass might be going up to $30. But Canadian.

Canadian, so you guys get a good discount there.

Yeah.

Cool. Best time to come? I know we can't really control it. Wintertime. Okay, so when there's snow is the best time to show up. Let's hone that in a little bit.

Typically Christmas to the end of March.

Wow, that's a little better.

I was about to say the same thing. It depends what you want. You do have shorter days in December and January, and there's a higher chance it's going to be socked in or snowing. So if you want good snow, you typically want to go between January and February. You definitely get some good days into March, but in March it's more about sun and just being up in the alpine. Long days, better scenery. But you might not get that good snow. It might be warm up there, it might be slush riding. I don't know if I'd say slush riding in March, but there are definitely days, especially last year, where it got pretty balmy up in the alpine.

Okay. You kind of hit on room and board. Plenty of Airbnb opportunities, hotel options, right?

Everything in town is within a five-mile radius, basically.

So how far out do you have to book, any idea?

You definitely want to be about a month out, I'd say. Especially if you're a big group.

Especially if you're a big group, for sure. If it's between January and February and you decide on a Wednesday, oh, Revy's getting snow, let's go, you're going to have a hard time getting a room, because everyone else has seen that too.

Yeah. For short term, the hotels are your best chance of booking something. The Airbnbs are booked far out.

Cool. Awesome, guys. That was helpful for a lot of us who just haven't ventured across and done the trip yet.

I wouldn't recommend it though. It's kind of overrated.

No snow. Never snows, just rain.

No sun. Just not good.

You guys up for a little fun? We're winding this down, but we're going to go out with a bang. These are quick, snappy answers. It's a quick fire round. First question, this is for all of you. If you could only follow one social media account, who would it be? You only get one on Instagram. It can't be Chloe. We're taking wives and significant others out of this.

Probably him.

Overrated.

He is overrated.

Freerider Filmz.

You can't say that. Hugo, here you go.

The snowmobile club, so we can stay informed.

I guess that's pretty important. Okay, good answer. Very good answer. If you could pick just one individual in the industry to ride with for a day, who would it be?

Matt.

Yeah, I don't want this. I don't want you to answer first.

Someone other than Matt.

I wouldn't ride with that guy. I'd say Chris Brenn, since I haven't ridden with him.

Brenn was probably what I'd say, but since he said it, I'll skip it. I like Kyle Saxton. I think he's a fun guy to ride with. I'd like to go ride with him.

Cool. All right, so we've got Kyle Saxton, we've got Brenn, and Hugo, what have you got?

Honestly, I don't know a lot of athletes. I remember one time we were supposed to ride, and you told me, oh, we're riding with Keith.

He was talking about Keith Curtis.

Which Keith? I had no idea of his last name.

That's awesome. Okay, we can pass on that question, not a big deal. If things got wild and crap hit the fan out in the backcountry, who's the sledder you'd hope was there in your group to get you out?

Hugo. I'd probably say Hugo.

Hugo looks like he has a lot of experience.

He has a lot of energy.

I feel like Hugo is the guy who, in a bad situation, can level everyone out. I think that's what I'd look for if we're talking a bad situation. Someone to keep things cool and get what needs to be done, done. I think that's the guy.

I think Jason would be good too.

We've got Jason out here too, drinking his greens right now. Healthy boy. Okay, who's someone up-and-coming we should keep our eyes on? A backcountry sledder in general, someone a lot of people may not know about yet.

I would have said Ty before, but I think he's become pretty well known within the last year. He's just got crazy natural talent. He doesn't even ride that much, and he just sends it all the time. Super confident, fluid rider. He's definitely that guy.

I'll pick someone else, just to switch it up. Probably Nate Dean. I don't think many people know him, but he's just a Revelstoke guy and he's underrated. Good tree rider, good jumper, does it all, and just loves the sport. So I'd go with him.

Okay, Nate Dean. And Hugo, do you have anyone in mind? Any of the locals up there?

Maybe Jamie. From what he was doing with his 600 last year, and now seeing him on the 858, he's definitely a really talented rider. I rode with him for the first time in 2019, I believe. Man, he just rode circles around me.

Cool, awesome. Well, we're wrapping things up here. They're literally closing the booth. If we sit here a little longer, they may have everything packed up for us. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

So we're down to the actual lightning round, the questions we ask every guest. Matt already knows, he's been through the drill. You've got a brand new sled. We'll start with Hugo. You only get three mods you can make to it. What are the first three things you're going to do? Wraps don't count. And tell us what sled you're going with.

Finger throttle, a shorter riser, and bumpers. Backwoods bumpers.

There we go, quick and easy. He knows what he wants.

Me: carbon fiber hood, carbon fiber pyramid. No, I'm excited to get on the mod sled, if you couldn't tell. Let's just say my own custom carbon fiber hood for one, then some Backwoods bumpers on there, and I don't really do much else. I guess a Trail Tech GPS, if we're talking.

Okay, love it. All right.

I'll be going with the Khaos Boost.

The Khaos Boost. Oh, you were talking about your Ski-Doo? I guess we're talking mod sleds, and you're on the Khaos Boost. Okay.

The Khaos Boost. Backwoods bumpers, suspension, and a handlebar setup, for sure. That's basically all I do to every sled. Those are kind of the go-tos. I don't want to ride without them now.

Awesome. Well, appreciate you guys. We've been hanging out all weekend and had a good time here. Lots of people.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Happy to do it. We'll plan the next one. No, we're stoked to have you guys here with us. The Edmonton show's been awesome, and the weather's been decent. We're going to pack up and head back across the border.

Good luck.

Thank you, we will need it. We'll see you in Revy this winter.

See you in Revy. Or at Out West Sled Fest, right?

Right. You guys heard it here first. Just kidding. All right, thanks guys. Thanks for tuning in. Remember to do all the things: like, comment, subscribe, and leave us a positive review. Hopefully we've added good content to your day and we can get a positive review out of it. Thanks for tuning in, and thanks for watching.