With some commissioners expressing unease, the Park County Commission has declined to support a study that will explore the feasibility of plowing the road to Cooke City, Montana, in the winter months.

Commissioner Lloyd Thiel said he was concerned the study wouldn’t fully consider the drawbacks of plowing; Commissioner Scott Steward worried that one of the consultants would be biased; and no one sounded particularly enthusiastic. When Commissioner Scott Mangold made a motion to sign a letter of support for the Park County Travel Council-led project, he offered that “it’s just a study” and could be critiqued.

His motion died for lack of a second.

While their support isn’t needed for the project to move forward, Park County Travel Council Executive Director Ryan Hauck said he wants to address the commissioners’ concerns and bring them on board.

“We are all here to promote what already exists,” Hauck said in a Monday interview. “We are not here to push any agendas. We are not here to make this a lopsided study by any means.”

From snowmobiling to cross country skiing, he said the intent is to explore “how can we truly enhance all of these outdoor recreation opportunities in that area?”

A broad look at the issue

The commission’s wariness to support the study reflects the long-running debate over the idea of plowing “the plug.”

It’s a roughly 9-mile stretch of the Beartooth Highway (U.S. Highway 212), which runs between the highway’s intersection with the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway (Wyo. Highway 296) and Cooke City. Currently, that portion of the roadway becomes a groomed snowmobile trail in the winter, drawing sledders from across the country.

However, those who want to plow the road believe opening it up to wheeled vehicles could be a much bigger boost for the region’s tourism — enabling significantly more wintertime access to Yellowstone National Park through its Northeast Entrance.

Hoping to take a “more broad-based” look at the issue, the Park County Travel Council has commissioned a study of “recreation access” in the Cooke City/Silver Gate area.

Travel Council Board Chairman Mike Darby, who stood in for Hauck at the March 21 meeting, said the study will include gauging the feasibility of plowing the plug and the impact on the area’s residents and businesses.

RRC Associates of Boulder, Colorado, and The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR) at the University of Montana will consider “all kinds of tourism,” Darby said, whether it’s snowmobiling, wildlife viewing or snowshoeing. The study will also examine if plowing the highway could allow better emergency access to Cooke City and Silver Gate in the winter.

As part of their approach, RRC and ITRR plan to survey Cooke City and Silver Gate residents, others in Park County, Montana, and Park County, Wyoming, and tourists visiting the region. The contractors also plan to take existing data and examine the costs and benefits of the different options and the economic impact of recreation.

“We feel that RRC … will provide us with information that we can actually use to help move things forward,” Hauck said in an interview. “Whether that is moving things forward with a new Trail A [for snowmobilers, to replace the plug], whether that’s moving things forward with options on how to plow that plug successfully, whether that’s moving things forward with not doing anything — because maybe it shows that we’re better off not doing anything.”

‘One-sided’ or unbiased?

However, the uncertainty about how the study will unfold was a concern for Commissioner Thiel at the March 21 meeting.

“I’m not opposed to the study at all; I’m just not totally in favor of supporting something [when] we don’t know what the outcome will be,” he said. “I mean, if it is one-sided and my name’s tagged to it, I’m not in favor of that.”

Thiel also said he wanted a broader look at the issue than what was laid out in RRC’s proposal. He said plowing would “create as many problems as it is going to fix one” and could kill the snowmobiling in the area.

That’s one reason the council wants an unbiased study of the issue, Darby said.

“Hopefully … we can come up with the right answers after we look at the study from both sides,” he said.

Commissioners in Park County, Montana, are on board and agreed to split the study’s estimated $66,000 cost with the travel council — support that Darby called “a huge thing.”

Part of the resistance from the Park County, Wyoming, commissioners appeared to stem from pushback by local snowmobilers.

Bert Miller of the Cody Country Snowmobiling Association and the Wyoming State Snowmobile Association told commissioners, “We do not support the study at this point.”

Miller critiqued the entire concept of plowing the road, saying a surge in winter traffic would lead to a degraded experience in Cooke City — and he questioned past polls that have shown growing support for the idea.

He also expressed concern that the study proposal didn’t include input from snowmobilers or specifically mention the possibility of creating an alternate snowmobile trail. 

“We can’t afford to lose any more trail,” Miller said.

Providing information

Hauck, who was at a tourism conference at the time of the discussion, said he wished he’d done a better job of addressing the concerns ahead of the meeting. Once the paperwork is finalized with the consultants, he said the intent is to “immediately” reach out to snowmobiling advocates, plowing proponents, outdoor recreation representatives and area residents to make sure all voices are heard.

Hauck said he hopes the study comes up with options to enhance the area’s snowmobiling, reiterating that it is an “apolitical” effort.

At the March meeting, Commissioner Steward said he supports a study “100%” but questioned if RRC “would really be unbiased.”

“An awful lot” of the people affiliated with the firm have worked with Yellowstone and other national parks, Steward said, and seem to have an “environmental” background.

“Some of that kind of makes me wonder, are they geared more towards helping Yellowstone?” he asked.

Steward added that seeing a concentration of RRC clients in Colorado, California and New York “scares me a little bit.”

The travel council received multiple proposals — including one from the University of Wyoming — but the joint proposal from RRC and the University of Montana “seemed to fit the best,” Darby said. “It really did.”

RRC referred questions to Hauck, who said the firm was selected in part because of past work for Park County, Montana.

“They [RRC] have a great track record — they really do — of doing unbiased, successful studies that present information that allows people to use that information,” Hauck said.

He doesn’t think the study will necessarily resolve “the plug” debate. However, “more information is always better than less information” and the research “gives us something that we can both talk about as a good starting point,” Hauck said.

As chair, Commissioner Dossie Overfield didn’t vote on the issue, but she indicated she was open to signing a letter of support for the study.

“I think it gives everybody information; it doesn’t commit us … to doing anything,” Overfield said, adding, “It’s another leg in a whole long process that may or may not come out with good information as far as personal opinions or what’s at stake. But there’s no commitment to match the study with anything.”

Commissioner Mangold expressed a similar sentiment in moving to support the study, but with Commissioner Lee Livingston absent and Thiel and Steward opposed, it died.

What’s next

After the motion failed, Miller offered a thank you to the commissioners.

“We do look forward to working with all players on this as we move down the road,” he added.

In earlier remarks to the commission, Miller suggested that perhaps the dispute could result in a “win-win” if an alternative snowmobile trail is created, allowing both wheeled and oversnow vehicles to access the Cooke City area.

“It’s been 40 years we’ve argued about open/closed,” Miller asked. “So we’re really wanting to study that even more.”

Hauck is still hoping to get the Wyoming commissioners behind the travel council’s study, but he said it will move forward either way.