You are here

Reader Participation Day: Which Issue Resonates More: Yellowstone Snowmobiles or Cape Hatteras ORVs?

Share

Two of the most contentious issues in the National Park System are the debate over snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and the one over off-road vehicle management at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

In Yellowstone, the dispute over recreational snowmobiles is moving into its second decade at a cost of more than $10 million to the National Park Service. Sometime next year we should see the latest draft winter-use plan and how it proposes to let visitors enter the park: snowmobiles, snowcoaches, or a mix of the two?

While snowmobile technology certainly has evolved since 2000 -- when this issue became a Ping-Pong ball between conservationists worried about impacts to Yellowstone's air, water, sound, and employee and visitor health and snowmobile enthusiasts who prefer to enjoy winter in the park atop their sleds -- how much those impacts can be resolved or mitigated remains questionable.

Past efforts at solving this conundrum have resulted in lawsuits that succeeded in sending the Yellowstone staff back to the drawing board time and again.

At Cape Hatteras, the debate over when and where those who rely on off-road vehicles to reach preferred spots on the seashore is only a handful of years old. But it is particularly heated with abuse at times heaped on Park Service staff as well as on Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, which successfully sued to have the Park Service produce an ORV management plan.

Depending on which side you listen to, the proposed ORV rules would be devastating to local businesses and force surf casters and their families to walk miles toting their gear to reach their preferred fishing spots, or they would go a long way towards restoring healthy populations of endangered and threatened sea turtles and shorebirds.

While, understandably, these issues can have the greatest impact on the economies and livelihoods of those living closest to Yellowstone and Cape Hatteras, these are units of the National Park System, and as such should be important to all who enjoy the national parks, no matter where they live.

So, with that background, which of these two issues is of greater interest to you?

Comments

Robert, I agree about seeing YellowStone in the Winter. I grew up in Michigan and what a delight to see Mackinac in the winter.

As far as Cape Hatteras you are wrong about who controls 90% of the beaches (See Consent Decree and the quatities they propose for plover recovery on the island 30 Pairs with one chick per) I have never had an issue with finding a beach to attend with no 4X4. Look into the villages or the dozens of approved crossovers where no vehicles are allowed.

As far as the shuttle system. Can you see a line of people with fishing gear waiting with families to access the point? Parking lots would have to be created eating up more precious land for the birdies.

Kurt,
I agree that the suit was another chapter, but only that is when the Anti ORV crowd got the upper hand.


Hate to say it, I use the closed off beaches all the time, walking over from my car. Rarely do we not find tire tracks through them.


Winter can be silent, but I prefer hearing the sound of woodpeckers working in dead trees, the sounds of ice popping and cracking, or snow plopping as it is warmed just enough by the sun to lose its perch, etc. Winter is usually not all that quiet! Animals here in our farmland area, make all kinds of noise, from the chittering of squirrels and chipmunks to the other animals calling to one another. The sound of animal or human travel is usually audible, particularly when there's a crust on the snow! The howl of winter winds can drown out any voice, screaming like a banshee!

Kurt, while you are entitled to your opinion -- "Human-caused impacts are decidedly not part of nature or a natural infliction" -- I'm puzzled at why you feel that humans are not part of nature. Why single out one species and exclude it?

The views of others in this forum are of interest to me; I applaud Dave Crowl's mention of this!


My family and I visited Yellowstone last winter and did the snowmobile trip with a guide from West Yellowstone . What a wonderful adventure it was. I have bad high blood pressure and there is no way I or most visitors could hike all the way to most of the park-- especially in the winter. The guides were very cognigent of the impact on the park. The snow-mobiles were quiet and meet all the guidelines. The animals did'nt seem to care at all about us but rather were wanting to use the roads we were on because it was easier for them to wlk because the snow was hard. We never were allowed to go off the main road and travelled in a group.i don't think snow-mobiles negativley impact the park at all ,the way its regulated now . It allows 100 times more people to enjoy the park during the winter. the area the snow-mobiles go on is less then 1/10 of 1 % of the park. I've been to nine of our Nat. parks and our trip to Yellowstone on the snow-mobiles was one of the greatest!!


Julie,

A philosophical bent, eh?

Let's keep things in their proper context. I was merely assessing your comparison of the impacts of nature -- hurricanes, cold, snowfall and blowdowns -- with those of motorized vehicles. I never said humans were not part of nature. They are very much.

But snowmobiles, ATVs, chainsaws, cars, trucks, tents, sleeping bags, etc, etc, etc, are not naturally occurring, are they? Rather, does it not take the manipulation of nature through the mining and refining of ores, distillation of petroleum, etc, etc, etc, to create them? (I'll let Ryan debate whether that manipulation is natural since it's by humankind's hands)

Some see beauty and magnificence in the raw, unbridled power of nature, even if it's displayed in a wildfire or a hurricane, simply because it's a wholly natural display. There's no ugliness in it. Awe-inspiring, perhaps, but not ugly.

Others, though, see no beauty in deeply rutted terrain left by machinery or vehicles, or in oil or antifreeze spills, or in pieces of bumper or undercarriage left behind.

That's not to say I'm against riding in a car or snowcoach or snowmobile. It's merely to rebut your assertion that Mom Nature is as devastating to a national park landscape as is Honda or Polaris.


When our children were young we were uncomfortable with the vehicles driving on the beach at Cape Hattaras especially near the campgrounds...at that time we did not have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We have since discovered the joy of getting off by ourselves and spending the day on a beach where we seldom see other people. There are still many sections where cars are not allowed and the wall to wall people that use them can have them. With the miles of shoreline available at Cape Hatteras it would be a shame to close the beaches and leave them to the birds. We respect the seasonal closures and have often talked about getting more involved with "turtle patrol" with the hopes of someday seeing a hatching turtle nest.


Julie Kay Smithson

I have been a regular visitor to CHNS for 50 years. Cape Hatteras is an extremely small Park when compared to Yellowstone. At one time the ocean beaches was the highway for the extremely small communities of local residents as there was no paved roads on Hatteras or Ocracoke islands. In the 1950s the state built a paved road and no one used the beach for access on or off the island anymore. The beaches were wide and void of vehicles. It was a wild and beautiful place then.

The National Park service dropped the ball by not restricting ORV access then. The handwriting was on the wall and the Park Service looked the other way. Today it is quite common to see cars parked 20 feet apart with the rest of the beach a morass of ORV tracks in the sand. For the most part the ORV users are orderly and respectful, there are just too many of them in too small a place. NPS law enforcement officers are few and far between and can’t adequately patrol or enforce the ORV laws there are.

Many times CHNS doesn’t even remotely look like a National Park. It would be better for the National park Service to deed the Nation’s first National Seashore to the state of North Carolina than to continue to miss-manage the Park the way they do now.

The local National Park mangers seem relieved to let the environmental organizations take responsibility for forcing them to adhere to Park Policy. 50 years ago should be the standard for management of CHNS.

Bill H


Kurt thanks for acknowledging that the snowmobiles are restricted to the roads as you can see Randi and Ed don't seem to understand it in their comments. As you know there are also occurances of automobiles running off road in Yellowstone over the years yet there has not been a big push to eliminate them from the park. Snowmobiles may get too far off to the side of the road or may pull into an area that is closed in winter but open in summer and those are sometimes called off road for snwomobiles but called normal traffic in the summer so unfortunately the term off road varies between summer and winter when the snowmobiles may not truly be off road but in an area that is not groomed and maintained in the winter but still part of the road system.


Add comment

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.

The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.

You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.

So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.