It’s about time someone talked about how the snowmobile issue in Yellowstone National Park has been defined by two opponents that don’t really represent the public at large (HCN, 4/27/09). Fall and winter travel is mostly regional, a large group of people who truly love the park and visit often. Over-snow travel has effectively locked this group out of the park, as well as most of the public, not with closed gates but with a barrier of the worst kind, money. Yellowstone in winter has become a wealthy person’s adventure travel opportunity. The snowmobile nightmare of the mid-’90s is thankfully gone, but snow coaches are not the answer in this day of higher fuel costs and worries over carbon emissions. For a family of four to visit Yellowstone on a coach is $400 a day on the cheap end. Neither the Greater Yellowstone Coalition nor the snowmobile lobby represents me — let me drive, or tell me where I can get on the bus.
Doug Edgerton
West Yellowstone, Montana
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Gimme wheels.
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