WINTER SPORTS – Beginning on Thursday, snowmobilers will be able to enter a drawing for permits to ride through Yellowstone National Park without a guide.

A permit is required for all non-commercially-guided groups to enter the park.

The permits will be allocated by lottery and entries will be accepted Sept. 1-30. The winners will be notified in October. After the lottery, any remaining permits will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Trips can be up to three days long, and permits cost $40 per day, with a $6 application fee.

Coeur d’Alene drawdown begins

WATERSPORTS – The annual drawdown of Lake Coeur d’Alene to winter pool levels will beg on Tuesday.

Avista will increase flows out of Post Falls Dam to gradually lower the lake about a foot from full pool by the end of September, the company says in a release.

The lake will be lowered an additional 1 1/2 feet per month until reaching its natural winter level.

Dam licensing agreements required the lake to be filled to summer full-pool elevation of 2,128 feet from as early as practical in the spring until the Tuesday following Labor Day.

The lake has dropped more than three inches below the full-pool, which has prompted Avista to temporarily decrease flows from 600 cubic feet per second to the bare minimum of 500 cfs at Post Falls Dam.

The Sierra Club and other conservation groups have spoken out, saying that dropping to 500 cfs is bad for fish and robs the aquifer of water.

Flows will increase in the Spokane River downstream of Post Falls when the drawdown begins. The Post Falls boat launch and river below the Spokane Street bridge will remain open for recreation until November, except for a couple of days in September when tests are conducted at the South Channel Dam.