Winter Use of Yellowstone Park Revs Up With Snowmobiling

Just 25 years ago, no one could imagine how popular Yellowstone National Park would become in the winter.

The snowmobile industry was still in its infancy, and the machines were often hard to start and undependable. The park shut its borders when the snow flew, and most of the tourism-related businesses in West Yellowstone put up “Closed Until Spring” signs.

In the early 1960s, West Yellowstone businesses persuaded park officials to try plowing the road between the west gate and Old Faithful in an attempt to develop some winter business. When that effort stalled, the two groups compromised to allow over-snow traffic into the famous geyser.

And the race was on.

Now, the town of West Yellowstone bills itself as the “Snowmobile Capital of the World,” and people from throughout the nation flock there in the winter to enjoy the sights of Yellowstone and the wealth of recreational riding in national forest lands surrounding the park. A recent study showed that the winter season of 1993-94 netted the area $40 million from nonresidents alone.

Viki Eggers, executive director of the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce, said the winter industry is critically important. Last winter, the 3% resort tax generated almost $40,000 for the town’s coffers, she said.

“Our visitors come from all over,” she said. “People have learned that Yellowstone is wonderful in the wintertime. . . . West Yellowstone continues to be the dream vacation spot for snowmobilers year after year.”

From 1973 through 1994, winter visitation increased by almost 7% annually--about three times the annual growth of the traditionally heavy summer season.

Park officials estimate about 180,000 people now visit the park in the winter season, which runs from about Dec. 20 through March 10. In 1984 only 60,000 ventured into the park in the winter.

The rapid growth in snowmobile use has some groups saying enough is enough. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, based in Bozeman, has asked the National Park Service to hold the line on winter use inside Yellowstone.

Critics cite emissions and noise problems created by snowmobiles and the displacement of wildlife, especially the bison that use the groomed trails to venture outside the park’s boundaries, where they are shot or captured for slaughter to prevent the spread of brucellosis in Montana.

“The park doesn’t really have a good handle on the impacts of air emissions, noise and wildlife displacement created by the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone,” said Jeanne-Marie Souvigney, associate program director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “Those conflicts need to be addressed.”

The bison situation is particularly distressing this year for the coalition. Nearly 1,000 animals have been killed; many followed the groomed snowmobile trails out of the park.

“Why should we be encouraging the bison to walk to their death?” Souvigney asked. “We believe the state of Montana is practicing hypocrisy. They want the economy that the snowmobile industry provides for areas like West Yellowstone, but they don’t want the bison to use the snowmobile trails. They can’t have it both ways.”

Keeping the park open for winter use is also an expensive proposition for the National Park Service.

When you consider that about 3 million people visit Yellowstone each year, 180,000 visitors “is really just a drop in the bucket,” said Bob Seibert, Yellowstone’s West District ranger. But the Park Service spends about 5% more per person in the winter to keep Yellowstone’s roads groomed and concessions open, he said.

“It is an expensive operation to maintain,” Seibert said.

The sudden growth that began about 10 to 12 years ago caught the Park Service somewhat by surprise, Seibert said.

Much of the early management of winter use was reactive as the number of winter visitors grew. Extra snow groomers were purchased to keep the roads from getting too rough, and more seasonal help was hired to keep the lines from getting too long at the park’s gates.

By the late 1980s, park officials realized that the growth was significant and they developed a winter use plan in 1990. Seibert said the plan effectively “drew lines in the sand” on a variety of issues including the number of people that officials felt could visit the park without creating problems.

Two years later, visitor numbers exceeded those totals, Seibert said. That launched an effort to develop a new winter-use management plan that would include input from the six surrounding national forests, which when completed should help set the course for the future of winter use in the Greater Yellowstone area, Seibert said.

The Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee, which is developing the plan, is about ready to go to the public to “truth-check” the information it has gathered over the last couple of years. The finished plan may determine how many people can venture into the park on a given day and what forms of transportation might be used.

Park officials continue to meet with snowmobile-industry leaders to seek a way to develop a cleaner and quieter snow machine for use inside the park, Seibert said. The industry has already taken the first step by performing tests to measure emissions.

“They deserve credit for that,” Seibert said.

On the busiest days, anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 snowmobiles enter the park from the west gate alone. Seibert said park officials have been monitoring emissions and it appears that the pollution problem is generally localized to the travel corridors and around the gate areas.

Seibert said an engineer for one of the leading snowmobile companies said it has taken 20 years of evolution to develop the present-day snowmobile that consumers demand. The two-cycle engine that powers snow machines is perfect for the recreational user who needs the power to climb hills and play, he said.

Today’s snowmobile is designed for recreation, not just a mode of transportation that would be better suited for Yellowstone’s groomed trails, Seibert said. The snowmobile industry is concerned about whether there’s a market for a machine advocated by park officials, he said.

“We do have visitors who complain about the emission and noise generated by the snowmobiles,” he said. “And the industry is on record that they want to develop a cleaner and a quieter machine.

“We want people to be able to continue to experience the wonder of Yellowstone in the winter,” Seibert said. “But I do feel there is a pretty strong commitment to find a primary mode of transportation that is less intrusive on the natural scene. . . . Right now it’s not clear on what that might be or how that would be accomplished.”

Eggers said West Yellowstone merchants recognize the need to protect the resource inside the park. Most of the area’s visitors only spend a day or two of their vacation inside Yellowstone. The remaining days are spent playing on the national forest lands around the park.

When snowmobilers contact the Chamber of Commerce, Eggers said, they are encouraged to have their machines tuned properly to help control emission problems. And West Yellowstone probably was the first community to have merchants sell entry passes to help reduce the pollution problem created by long lines at the park’s entrance, she said.

“We’re doing what we can to protect the resource,” Eggers said. “We want our visitors to have a good experience, and we do everything we can to make sure that happens.”