You list a lot of superlatives there. What do you define as "good" mileage? Also are you looking for a car with a roof rack? SUV? Truck with a bed to put your gear into?

I have a 1/2 ton Silverado that I like a lot. It has the extended cab (not a true 4 door but it has the two suicide doors) and a 6 1/2 foot bed. I am looking to get a 3/4 ton with a true 4 doors and an 8 1/2 foot bed but I do a lot of wood cutting where I would like the extra bed space and towing capacity would be useful. My parents had a Subaru legacy with a roof rack that they took all over the place and it always handled great in the snow.

My Silverado will get 20 mpg with good road tires on it.

Subaru outback or forester with a roof rack .

We have some friends that have and Element. They bought it about 2004, they love it and have taken it all over Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah hiking and backpacking. The back seat has a lot of room and there is a surprising amount of cargo space when the seat is down. I think that you'd be very happy with that. They're coming to visit this weekend so I'll ask them some questions about some of the cons to the vehicle.

For my job, I drive more than any person in America (and, yes, I'm almost not kidding). I owned an AWD Subaru legacy and Forester for a while, but the problem with them is that 99.9% of the time you don't need the AWD, which lowers their gas mileage HUGELY! Sure, when it is snowy they are great, but most of the time it is not, and with them runing on AWD, their gas mileage sucks.

So, I now own a 2005 Toyota Corolla with 259,000 miles, and gets 37 mpg on the highway. Not as good in snow, but, in Iowa, when it snows bad, everything closes down anyway, so few of us really need AWD or 4WD (little known fact about those who live in snowy states; things close anyway so you don't need those kind of vehicles, unless you live in the country).