Yellowstone Wants Your Thoughts!
By Scott in Cody, Wy, New West Unfiltered 3-27-07
The National Park Service is preparing a long-term plan for managing winter recreational use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway. The purpose of the Winter Use Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will be to ensure that park visitors have a range of appropriate winter recreational opportunities, while ensuring that these recreational activities are in an appropriate setting and do not impair or irreparably harm park resources or values.
The EIS will include alternatives with various limits on the number of snowmobiles that may enter the parks. It will also consider alternatives with varying guiding requirements, including allowing for some unguided or non-commercially snowmobile guided use. In addition, an alternative allowing only mass-transit snowcoaches will be considered. Scoping may inform us of the need to consider additional alternatives.
Supt. Suzanne Lewis already knows that her neighbors to the east feel strongly about this issue. We, the people of Northwest Wyoming call on the greater population of We the People of the United States of America to join us in opposing the preferred alternative to this draft. It is listed as the current plan," when in reality, the current plan allows for some snowmobiles and coaches to enter the East Gate. This preferred plan allows for no over-snow travel through the East Gate (unless you want to go on foot):
Allows for nearly historic levels of snowmobile use but requires commercial
guides. This Alternative mimics the temporary winter use plan currently in place, with three primary changes: 1) snowcoaches must meet Best Available Technology (BAT) standards; 2) daily limit on snowcoaches; and 3)
Sylvan Pass would be closed to through travel.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the best alternative in this proposal is Alt. 4:
Allows for increased snowmobile use, relative to historic numbers. Commercial guides would be required for most snowmobilers; some could also visit the park after completing a non-commercial or unguided guide training course.
This plan would allow for 1,025 snowmobiles daily (600 West, 250 South, 25 North, 100 East, 50 Old Faithful) and 115 snowcoaches daily (46 West, 15 South, 5 North, 4 East, 35 Old Faithful, 10 Private).
The public comment period is open right now and expires May 31 2007, 11:59 PM MDT. You can submit your comment online or you can submit your comment via snail mail, postmarked by the expiration time,* to
Winter Use Plan
PO Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
It's a public comment period for a reason. We, the public, get to comment. Comment how you feel on this issue. Even if you disagree with me. However, I would strongly encourage you to study the issue before submitting your comment. Talk to people in the area; find out why we feel so strongly on this. Believe me, we'll be glad to tell you.
*According to the YNP Winter Use website, comments will be accepted until June 4, 2007. [End of article]
I sent in the comment, but I don't think they have the slightest intention of leaving the pass open. I did mention the fact that it would seem letting skiers in without avalanche control would seem to be a rather dangerous situation and that rescue or body recovery of skiers could be far more costly than avalanche control. Of course the liability factor of allowing them into a known avalanche prone area should be considered. It seems to me that avalanche control and allowing snowmobilers and coaches in would help to pay for that and could prove a lot less costly in the long run.....not that I have noticed a lot of common sense used by professional bureaucrats, especially when they are trying to curry the favor of the environmentalist big business.
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