Save Yellowstone From Mechanized Fun-Seekers

As one who started backpacking in the High Sierra in 1937 in summer and snowshoeing there in wintertime, and who has gone on six rugged treks in the Himalayas and Pamirs of Nepal, India and China, I look with some contempt on people like your letter writer (July 1), who say that “the end result [of forbidding snowmobiles in Yellowstone] will be loss of [winter] access for many park visitors.”

The writer sounds as if he may be a fairly responsible sort, but unfortunately, not all snowmobilers are, and quiet new motors or not, some snowmobilers like nothing more than playing cowboy with elk and bison. And one can only ask: How did people get around in Yellowstone from Jim Bridger’s day 150 years ago until quite recently, when snowmobiles were invented? The answer: snowshoes or cross-country skis. If people can’t stumble across country on them, they should have to do without Yellowstone in winter. At age 84 that’s what I now have to do, but that’s life for you.

We can’t all have everything, and we should leave wildlife in Yellowstone undisturbed in wintertime.

Robert H. Paschall

Bishop