Destination: Wyoming : The Roar Heard ‘Round the Wild : A newly completed trail sets snowmobilers and conservationists on a collision course

There comes the moment when Kenny says to me: “Just do it, man. It’s nothing. Go as fast as you can and straight up. It’ll be OK. Hardly anybody ever gets hurt.”

So here I am, Mr. Hardly Anybody, riding a combustion engine to my death in the jagged mountains south of Yellowstone National Park, whizzing down a steep slope into a little creek bed and up the other side to a point where the slope becomes a vertical cornice. In front of me, the stub of my busted cross-country ski dangles grudgingly from the sled behind Kenny’s machine.

Perhaps they will erect a cross here in Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains at the spot where the hundreds of pounds of metal I am riding flopped back and crashed down. Snowmobilers of tomorrow will solemnly tip their helmets as they pass by on the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail, part of a newly completed network of trails in the mountains of Wyoming that extend like fingers west, south and southeast from the Yellowstone Plateau.

After resisting the notion for more than five years, two weeks ago, on Jan. 21, Grand Teton National Park--just south of Yellowstone--finally opened 33 miles of trail, thus suturing a superhighway system for snowmobiles that slices hundreds of miles through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. The trail in Grand Teton was the crucial link.

Conservationists were alarmed at the prospect of the noise and pollution that accompany snowmobiles; Yellowstone’s fragile winter wildlife, accustomed to eight months of peace when the summer crowds leave, will be imperiled, they charged. But eight months of peace is exactly what motel owners in towns such as West Yellowstone didn’t want, and they expect a big boost in the already burgeoning winter season at Yellowstone.

The system is young, and while the snowpacked snowmobile trails in Yellowstone are bumper-to-bumper, this Grand Teton link has so far been sparsely used. My only hope for discovery and subsequent decent burial lies with my fellow “motorheads,” Kenny and my friend, photographer Mike McClure, who sit smugly astride turbocharged Phazer IIs and Skidoo Safaris watching me launch my runty, black snowmobile into the heavens.

Brraaahhhrrroar. Whzzzzzzz. Whomp!

Gee. I think I’ll do that again.

*

This was the second day of a three-day trip on the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail (CDST) last winter led by Kenny Hewitt, a snowmobile guide and lover of the sport who does background checks to be sure there are no ski experiences in his companions’ pasts. When he found the skis amid my gear, he offered to carry them on his sled, which then were broken in an unfortunate little “accident.” (He’ll say I’m making this up.)

The first day out, I asked him why we needed a guide, since the trail was marked and the engines never so much as hiccuped. By the second day, wallowing in deep snow at 10,000 feet, many miles from the nearest shelter or source of heat, I was glad to have an experienced leader. The detailed maps provided by state snowmobiling groups and the occasional trail markers don’t prepare riders for the vastness of the backcountry, the sense that all ties have been cut. This is some of the most rugged and remote winter terrain in the country. And with Hewitt goading me, I learned that on a snowmobile you could do things and go places that I never would have thought of.

For instance: After some sunny weather, the snow had set up firmly enough that we could take off along some of the high ridges and open areas in untracked snow, porpoising along at a merry clip as if this were the Mediterranean, not the Continental Divide in deep-freeze February.

From a respectful, slow-moving distance, we could visit the elk feeding ground near Green River Lake, where the great-antlered beasts are less disturbed by the sight of slow-moving snowmobiles than they are by a biped.

Had one of my skis not met an untimely splintering, I could have joined other skiers who had snowmobiled deep into the mountains, winter camped and now were glissading down the bowls. A friend would pick them up at the bottom and ride them back to the top by machine.

We could visit some of the country that I’ve tramped in the summer, and see it cloaked in the ermine robes of winter. For that matter, we could see an ermine slinking across the trail.

We could play like kids on dirt bikes, doing figure-eights, zipping up and over the uneven terrain that flanks the miles and miles of groomed trail, bouncing about on a ride that Disney will never be able to match. All of this in the monumental solitude of a mountain winter.

But that may soon change.

“A lot of folks are coming; they’ve been waiting for this final link,” said Jim Smail, the Wyoming state snowmobile trails manager, referring to the corridor through Grand Teton National Park. Park officials are concerned about impacts but have no scientific data; they call the link “experimental” and will spend the next several years monitoring safety, air quality and noise.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC), a conservation group in Bozeman, Mont., says that’s not enough. Noting the visible blue haze over the town of West Yellowstone and the more than 1,200 snowmobilers who entered the park on a single day in December, the GYC last month called for a daily cap on the number of snowmobiles in the parks. “In the absence of science, common sense has to prevail,” said GYC’s Bob Ekey.

We met a number of Wyoming snowmobilers, but we also met folks who had come a long way: from Michigan, from Pennsylvania, from Minnesota. They were few and they were friendly. You might say they were the future too. There are about 16,000 registered snowmobiles in Wyoming; there are 265,000 in Minnesota. The groups we met from New Holland, Pa., and St. Paul, Minn., were having a great time.

The trail system may pump some winter life into outfitting operations and businesses along the route. In the case of the Place, a restaurant, motel and bar in Cora, Wyo., it already has. It was there that we met the future--Willie Zimmerman, a slight, bearded Pennsylvanian, who sipped a beer after a day in which he pumped his Indy Storm machine up to speeds of 110 m.p.h.

He and his friends had had their machines trucked out, and flew to meet them. He prefers Wyoming to previous adventures in Canada, New York and elsewhere because there is more snowmobile space here: “There are just a lot of trails, and you can get off them and play. In Canada, you have to stay on the groomed trails.”

It’s not hard to see a connection, in self-professed motorheads such as Zimmerman, between snowmobiling and motorcycles. The love of a two-stroke engine, the wind in your face, speed and risk. But Zimmerman and others like him appreciate their surroundings too. “When I was younger, it was the machine and riding,” he said. “As I get older, I guess the scenery has started to matter more. I had an accident six or seven years ago. That was probably good because it scared me.”

*

During 1995, snowmobilers will have to putt at a mere 35 m.p.h. alongside the automobile road that crosses Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone

“It’s a very complex and complicated operation that we’re going to have to deal with in the park,” said Jack Neckels, superintendent at Grand Teton. Neckels cites the need for ambulances and for winterizing facilities now used only in the summer, among other things.

With similar links being established between Yellowstone and various other snowmobile trail systems in Utah, Idaho and Montana, it’s not hard to imagine “endurance” snowmobiling: winter-long trips that would start far north in Montana and end up near the snow-swept high deserts of Colorado.

When that happens, there may be a lot more of those snowmobiles from Minnesota along the CDST. Neckels thinks the numbers will “always be small,” but not everyone is so sure. The problem is, I had fun. And fun is attractive.

If they reduce the machine noise--and Smail says that’s in the works--another objection is trumped. Tougher pollution standards, too, would help--a snowmobile now is allowed by law to spew many times more hydrocarbons and nitrous oxides than an automobile. If technological wizards keep coming up with answers to such problems, there is still the general bias against internal combustion machines in the wild. Just as there is the opposing enthusiasm for squatting on a padded engine in sub-zero weather for six hours at a stretch.

By the time I met Dave Harper, I was feeling a little schizophrenic. Harper was on a snowmobile, so I let my newly developed motorhead personality emerge, telling him how much fun I was having, scolding skiers for not giving this a chance.

“But there’s a major difference,” said Harper, who was part of a large group riding in from Cora. “Skiers really just want to be out there, getting the full natural experience, noticing everything. Snowmobiles? They stop and they like it for a bit, but it’s the machine you experience most of the time. This took a real adjustment on my part.”

I remembered the silence and solitude and sweat of skiing the backcountry, a stillness found nowhere else in life.

Still . . . muffle the cultural aversion a skier feels for machines that invade solitude, and think of the advantages: the skiing slopes you can get to, the country you can see with the help of a little gasoline.

Harper and I smiled and bid goodby and pointed our machines in opposite directions. In front of him, his wife pulled a sled that carried his wheelchair.

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GUIDEBOOK

Wyoming Wise

Getting there: From LAX fly direct to Jackson, Wyo., no change of planes, on Delta, or take a connecting flight on Delta or United. Round-trip fares begin at about $420.

Where to stay: Several lodges cater to snowmobilers in the winter and offer choice locations along major snowmobile routes.

The recently expanded Flagg Ranch, located on the John Rockefeller Parkway between Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, has comfortable, unpretentious rooms and snowmobile rentals: P.O. Box 187, Moran, Wyo. 83013, (800) 443-2311; rooms $65 for two people, per room, per night; snowmobile rental from $119 per day; package deals available.

East of the park in Bridger-Teton National Forest is Togwotee Mountain Lodge, which has become a busy hub of snowmobiling activity in the less-restricted forests: P.O. Box 91, Moran, Wyo. 83013, (307) 543-2847; rooms $84-$126 per person, per night, include breakfast and dinner; snowmobile rental from $109 per day, less with all-inclusive package.

Yellowstone Tour & Travel (800) 221-1151 offers a variety of lodging and snowmobile rental packages in the town of West Yellowstone, ranging from a four-night stay at the Midtown Motel for $499 per person, with snowmobile and guides, to $810 per person for six nights at the Yellowstone Resort, with snowmobiles and guides.

In the park, only the lodge at Mammoth (north entrance) and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge are open in the winter, and weekend rooms at the Snow Lodge must be reserved well in advance. Visitors can ride their machines from the south, north, east or west gates, or take a chauffeured multi-passenger snowmobile from the south gate to Old Faithful (about $70 round trip from Flagg Ranch) and rent machines there: TW Recreational Services, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. 82190, (307) 344-7311; rooms at Mammoth and Old Faithful begin at about $45 per room (without bath) to $212 for a suite at Mammoth; snowmobile rentals begin at $120 per person, per day.

Outfitters: Outfitters from Jackson, West Yellowstone, Gardiner and Cody provide rentals and guided snowmobile trips in Yellowstone National Park. Outfitters in Pinedale, Dubois, Jackson and Lander guide trips along the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail. Among the many: Rocky Mountain Tours, P.O. Box 820, 1050 S. Highway 89, Jackson Hole, Wyo. 83001, (307) 733-2237; Ultimate Snowmobile Adventure (Kenny Hewitt), 391 Main St., Lander, Wyo. 82520, (307) 332-9808.

For more information: Wyoming Travel Commission, I-25 at College Drive, Department WY, Cheyenne 82002, (800) 225-5996 or (307) 777-7777.