Edition: U.S. / Global

Vrooming Into Yellowstone

Published: February 18, 2004

President Bush's policy toward the environment has been to drill, mine and pave it, so it's understandable that environmentalists shriek when he pulls out a whetstone and announces grand plans for Yellowstone National Park.

Yet in the battle over snowmobiling in Yellowstone, it's Mr. Bush who is right. And, to me at least, the dispute raises a larger philosophical question: should we be trying to save nature for its own sake or for human enjoyment? Forgive my anthropocentrism, but I think humans trump the bison and moose.

Yellowstone National Park, a wonderland at any time of year, is particularly dazzling in winter, when the geysers shoot out of snowfields and the elk wear mantles of frost. I took one of my sons to visit last year and learned two things that I don't believe most environmentalists realize.



Second, a new generation of snowmobiles is available with four-stroke engines, not two-stroke. These machines cut hydrocarbon emissions by 90 percent -- and noise by 50 percent.

That's why the Bush administration has been pushing for a sensible compromise: snowmobiles would be allowed -- but mostly the new four-stroke machines -- only on roads and primarily on guided tours. Only 950 would be permitted per day. (In contrast, a busy summer day draws about 3,000 cars.)

Now two federal judges are hurling thunderbolts at each other over this issue. A judge in Washington imposed tougher rules that would have ultimately banned snowmobiles from the park. Then a judge from Wyoming ordered that more snowmobiles be admitted. No one knows what's going to happen.

Environmentalists point out that one can also visit Yellowstone in snow coaches, which are a bit like buses on treads. But the existing snow coaches may be worse than the new snowmobiles in terms of noise and pollution, and they are a dismal experience -- you encounter nature only through fogged-up windows.

The central problem with the environmentalists' position is that banning snowmobiles would deny almost everyone the opportunity to enjoy Yellowstone in winter -- and that can't be green.

As an avid backpacker who loves the outdoors, I think the environmental movement should be trying to get more people out into the wild. That's why I'd like to see the Bush administration's compromise upheld, so Americans can continue to enjoy Yellowstone in winter. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers would, of course, still have all of backcountry Yellowstone for themselves, with no machines for many miles around.

Granted, snowmobiles are an intrusion. But so are cars. In the summer, we accept a trade-off: we admitted about 965,000 people last July to Yellowstone, with all the noise, garbage, public toilets and disruption that entailed, knowing that the park would be less pristine but that more people would get a chance to enjoy it. That seems a fair trade.


My bias is to put our interests on top. Thus I'm willing to encroach on wilderness to give Americans more of a chance to get into the wild. That's why we build trails, for example -- or why we build roads into Yellowstone.

All in all, I'd love to see more effort by environmentalists to get Americans into the wilderness. It would be nice to see a major push to complete the Continental Divide Trail in the Rockies, which runs from Canada to Mexico on maps -- but which has never been fully built. Likewise, there is talk about building a hiking trail across America from west to east -- it could be called the Colin Fletcher trail, after the man who helped popularize backpacking in America.

Putting human interests first doesn't mean that we should despoil Yellowstone, or that we should drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or that we should allow global warming. We have a strong human interest in preserving our planet. But we should also allow ourselves to enjoy this natural world around us -- including the grandeur of Yellowstone in winter -- instead of protecting nature so thoroughly that it can be seen only on television specials.