So, the SO and I went to one of the local Sno Parks over the weekend. Our chosen winter sports are cross country skiing and snow shoeing, probably amongst the more mustachian of the winter sports (a season pass to the Sno Park cross country & snowshoe trails is less than a single lift ticket for down hill skiing for example, classic fish scale cross country ski set up is a fraction of down hill ski gear....and I'm still using the set I bought ~10 years ago, etc).
This particular sno park is a dual access one - there are both X-country / snowshoe and snowmobile trails out of this area. After a short ski up a dual side access (one side for moto, the other for human powered) it's onto the non-moto only trail for some nice freshly groomed set tracks. Anyways.... a quick count of the sled set ups across from those of us parked near the ski trail was 21 rigs. There were more in the "back" part of the parking area. I'd guess a total of 30 or so snowmobile rigs out there.
So, the typical set up was this: Large 4x4, extended cab truck. Large dual axle enclosed snowmobile trailer, minimum of 4 sled capacity, some with room for 6. Of the groups hanging out in the lot, it seemed like most of the big trailers had 4 sleds in them, some more. At a minimum, each of these set ups were 50k. I'd guess many were north of 100k for the set up (~7-15k / snowmobile, trailers 5-15k, and then the truck....40-60k price point seemed typical). My cross country ski set up (skis, bindings, boots and poles) was only a few hundred back in the day.
The most "frugal" I saw was a guy in an Nissan XTerra with a single axle, open trailer and 2 sleds. The vehicle seemed pretty "normal" up in the mountains around here in winter. I'm guessing the pair of sleds & trailer were fit to the tow vehicle capability, rather than the other way around as I'd suppose on some of the other larger trailers up there.
Each trip up to the pass from the Seattle area (or more likely from points east) in one of those monster rigs was prob 15-20 gallons of fuel, plus more for the sleds. It cost us perhaps 5 gallons to round trip in the smaller, non-trailer towing vehicle we took.
I find it amazing the level of capital equipment & ongoing expense required for a hobby / sport that only can be pursued for ~4 months out of the year.
To each their own I suppose.....