Snowmobile contracts to be extended

Tue., Nov. 9, 2004

Associated Press

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – The National Park Service is planning to extend contracts allowing snowmobile operators who guided trips into Yellowstone National Park last winter to do the same this winter.

Continuation letters will be sent to providers, Yellowstone spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews said Monday. The winter season is to open mid-December.

Beginning this winter, the Park Service plans to allow up to 720 guided snowmobiles each day into Yellowstone and 140 snowmobiles in neighboring Grand Teton National Park and on the parkway that connects the two. Nearly all have to meet standards as cleaner, quieter machines.

The plan would be in place through the winter of 2006-07.

For the west entrance, typically the busiest, each of the eight operators would be allowed to guide up to 50 snowmobiles a day, Matthews said.

That’s fine with Kent Swanson, who has been taking calls from potential customers. Still, he and other business owners remember well how quickly plans changed last winter amid legal challenges and court orders and the confusion that affected the season.

“I’m past nervous. You remember the old adage, ‘You can slowly boil a lobster and they don’t know it?’ ” he said.

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