East Entrance avalanche control serves unique purpose
BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Monday, March 5, 2007 12:00 am
The avalanche control program that has kept Sylvan Pass open for winter recreationists is unique in the nation - the only program of its sort in the National Park Service and the only program in the United States focused on the safety of winter recreation vehicles, rather than vehicular traffic.
Run for more than 30 years, the avalanche control program serves a declining number of snowmobile and snowcoach visitors to Yellowstone National Park via the East Entrance near Cody. Citing safety concerns, the Park Service wants to end the program, closing the East Entrance to winter visitors.
"The Sylvan Pass situation is unique," said Doug Abromeit, director of the U.S. Forest Service Avalanche Center in Ketchem, Idaho. "It is the only avalanche control program for non-vehicular traffic."
A draft report commissioned and released recently by the Park Service focused on the avalanche hazards of Sylvan Pass, but did not address the costs and benefits of Yellowstone's avalanche control program. Nor did it ask for recommendations from the respected avalanche control expert based in Jackson Hole who wrote it.
"The scope of work I was asked to do is to identify the hazards to the public and the avalanche control crew," said Bob Comey, an avalanche forecaster for the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and the Bridger-Teton National Forest since 1992.
Comey said he's prepared to do more work, if asked, such as prepare a cost analysis of mitigation options, or make further recommendations under the question of whether Sylvan Pass should be kept open during the winter.
Open or closed?
The question came up within the draft environmental impact statement for winter use of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway. The Park Service recommended closing Sylvan Pass during the winter because of safety concerns of artificially triggering avalanches in the area.
Avalanche control crews must run a gauntlet of avalanche runs, in order to reach a 105mm howitzer platform used to trigger or "shoot down" avalanches on the pass. The howitzer and a crew shed are midway along a 5,000-foot stretch of highway that has 20 avalanche runs on the mountain slope to the north of the highway - the aptly named Avalanche Peak.
The proposal to close Sylvan Pass emerged last November, sparking criticism, especially from Park County commissioners, the business community and Wyoming's congressional delegation. They have complained the pass closure would cause significant economic losses to the area.
Real danger
Comey's report concluded that avalanches on Sylvan Pass are large enough to violently sweep vehicles off of the road and cause serious injury or death to the occupants - a hazard to snowmobiles, snowcoaches and snow surface grooming equipment in the winter and wheeled vehicles including cars, trucks and snowplows in the fall and spring.
He cited several options to completely eliminate the hazard, including rerouting the road, building protective snow sheds over the road or keeping the road closed to all traffic during the period of October through June (depending on the season) when the avalanche paths of concern are snow covered.
Comey wrote, "An avalanche hazard mitigation program greatly decreases the potential for a traveler to be seriously injured on killed in an avalanche but does not completely eliminate this possibility."
In a telephone interview, Comey said he was impressed with Yellowstone's avalanche control program.
"They're not cowboying it," he said of the crew, which has accumulated considerable experience and expertise.
Real costs
Comey's colleague, Don Bachman of Bozeman, Mont., said Comey has provided an accurate assessment of the avalanche situation on Sylvan Pass. On Bachman's first trip to the howitzer platform on Sylvan Pass, he said it was very much like running a gauntlet past the avalanche runs.
"I looked at those tracks and felt uneasy. Nothing happened, but there are ways to mitigate almost any avalanche situation," he said. Bachman said there are "formidable cost barriers" to mitigating the avalanche risk on Sylvan Pass.
Both Comey and Bachman are familiar with highway department and ski area avalanche control programs in the United States and Canada, ranging from highways that have thousands of travelers per day to Red Mountain Pass in Colorado, which is kept open during the winter for the tiny and otherwise isolated town of Silverton.
"I don't know of any (avalanche control) program in the U.S. that serves fewer than 400 vehicles a day," Bachman said. The only exceptions are isolated cases such as Silverton,or the Camp Bird Mine near Ouray, Colo., which has only 40 vehicular trips per day.
"That mine generates many millions of dollars in revenue each year, so that justifies the expense of an avalanche control program," he said.
During the 2005-06 winter season, 947 people entered Yellowstone through the East Entrance, via 635 snowmobiles and 23 snowcoaches. Winter traffic through the entrance was estimated to be 12 snowmobiles per day last season and one snowcoach every three to four days.
According to Yellowstone Park spokesman Al Nash, the park's annual budget for its avalanche control program is $167,965. That includes:
* $46,168 for the howitzer.
* $50,297 for a contract helicopter that drops charges on the slopes (at $5,000 per mission).
* $43,000 for avalanche forecasting.
* $15,000 for training.
* $13,500 for unexploded ordnance mitigation.
On a per capita basis, the Sylvan Pass avalanche control program worked out to $177.37 per visitor last winter.
Winter traffic via the East Entrance peaked in fiscal year 2001 at 6,457 and has declined each year since then. Park County officials and local businesses blame that trend largely on shifting Park Service policies and uncertainty over access to the park.
Yellowstone spokesman Nash said cooperating agencies will provide a technical review on Comey's report, and additional information will be incorporated into the final report. Meanwhile, Park Service officials will study Comey's report as they prepare a draft report for Yellowstone's winter-use plan, which should be released for public comment in late March. A final decision on the winter use plan - and Sylvan Pass - is scheduled later this year.