[at-l] Fwd: Snowmobiles - LONG

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

>       ***    Like the AT, what created Yellowstone was a need to
> contain wild
> qualities within a protected border. In other words, the directed cause to
> preserve natural quality is a stronger precedent than serving everybody's
> demand for use.
>
>        If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be any question
> involved in the
> first place. Shame to see persons involved with the AT so unaware of this
> basic aspect of conservation. What makes Yellowstone what it is
> is the fact
> that measures are taken to prevent certain types of usage. The way the
> formula works is the more you prevent conflicting use the better
> the wildness
> quality. How AT people would fight for the reverse is
> dumbfounding to me...


 No one has addressed the point of that long post about the facts of the
matter: no one has shown that snowmobile use does any damage.

Someone said that they compact the snow, that might be true in places where
you get a foot of snow but Yellowstone gets tens of feet of snow.

There apparently is some study that shows hikers and skiers disturb animals
more than snowmobiles.

The noise can't bother any other folks in the back country since there
aren't any other folks in the backcountry in Yellowstone during the middle
of winter.

And the air pollution problem is being addressed with the forced use of four
cycle engines.

So the mystery remains, where is the harm? Is it just the philosophical
angst some purists have against people preferring to use a different mode of
travel other than foot power??

Bryan