Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton visits Yellowstone

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

WEST YELLOWSTONE -- Yellowstone National Park is open for business, and Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton came here this week to broadcast that fact.

Along with her came reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and a television crew.

Norton and her entourage had what she called a "Wild Kingdom moment" Wednesday morning, their third day in the park, when they stopped their snowmobiles to watch trumpeter swans, scavenging coyotes and a pair of bald eagles along the Firehole River.

"It's something I hope we can share with the rest of the country," Norton told a luncheon here sponsored by the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce.

Her visit comes as business continues to decline for the snowmobile industry here. Snowmobile visits to the park are down 17 percent from the previous year's already low levels, Norton said.

After years of uncertainty and legal disputes, the park now admits up to 720 snowmobiles a day under a temporary plan. However, that target hasn't been approached so far this year.

Norton said she hopes to see business pick up once a new long-term plan is in place, sometime prior to the 2006-07 winter season.

Even some people who don't snowmobile, she said, are confused about whether the park is open in winter.

She said she wants to see "stability and predictability" concerning access to the park and hopes the park, and dependent communities like West Yellowstone, can "emerge from this with a situation that everybody understands."

"We depend on access to the park throughout the year for our survival," said West Yellowstone Mayor Mary Phillips.

Norton took a brief ride in a custom snowcoach during her trip. Unlike snowmobile visits, snowcoach trips to the park have risen steadily in the past two years.

Norton, however, said she found snowmobiles more to her liking, although the coach was "enjoyable" and she said she wasn't touting one vehicle over the other.

"A coach is a lot like the experience of riding in a vehicle, which we all do all the time," she told a press conference. "The really impressive part was riding on a snowmobile."

She said park planners will investigate the possibility of allowing people to explore the park on snowmobiles without hiring a guide, which is required by the current plan.

"That is one of the issues we want to look at," she said, but any unguided visitors probably would have to complete a training course.

Two previous studies, which cost millions of dollars, found that the "environmentally preferred" option would be to faze out snowmobiles and replace them with snowcoaches.

Asked about that alternative, Norton said "the mission of the Park Service is to provide for public use and enjoyment," for this generation and future ones.

And somebody probably will sue, whatever long-term plan the National Park Service selects.

"We always get sued at the Interior Department, no matter what we do," she said.

The goal is to make sure that decisions can hold up to court challenges, she said.

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com

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