[at-l] Bush Opens Yellowstone to More Snowmobiles

[jbryankramer@msn.com (J Bryan Kramer)]

That's what I've been wondering, according to the nps site they had
2,769,775 people visit the park, there had to have been a lot of other trips
made by people working there and so on so I'd guess at least 3,000,000
total. Assuming 2 people per car that's 1,500,000 auto visits per year.
That's ignoring the 75,000 on snow mobiles.  So there are at least 20 car
visits per snowmobile and the cars probably drive longer distances, from the
Teton entrance to the main visitor center is a couple hours if I recall
correctly. So I find it wholely unbelievable that 20 cars pollute less than
one snowmobile.  Assuming snow season lasts 16 weeks that's 460 snowmobiles
a week, but if driving season lasts 30 weeks that's 50,000 cars a week. I
smell bogus science again, all too common with the Klintonistas.  No wonder
people don't take anything this bunch says at value.

That being said I don't think I'd enjoy being buzzed by snowmobiles while I
was cross country skiing, but if they kept them to the roads I wouldn't have
any objection. I believe that the Bush plan sets a per day limit that will
actually sharply reduce the number of snowmobiles on peak days-weekends and
holidays and I think I heard that they can only enter the park in guided
groups now which should further reduce the number.

Apparently a lot of people's livelyhood depends on these trips and so of
course politicians are always concerned about throwing folks out of a job.

Bryan

>
> That said, when I read further and learned "Some 75,000 snowmobiles now
> enter Yellowstone each year, about 16 times the number of automobiles that
> journey through the park."  I can't help but wonder about the rest of the
> information in that article, or my understanding of Yellowstone today.