Boats and Blizzards

(Last trip for Xanterra operated Bombardier snowcoaches), National Park Service Photograph

In 1907, Harry Child bought the former Yellowstone Lake Boat Company and renamed it T. E. Hoffer Boat Company, after its new CEO. They continued using the steamship Zillah for several years until it was replaced by a gas-powered ferry, the Jean D., in 1910. In 1911, Child rebranded the company as the Yellowstone Park Boat Company and continued operating ferry and boat rentals. Today, small boats provide a ferry service to backcountry camping sites along the lakeshore. Rowboats and motorboats can be rented for fishing and recreating on Yellowstone Lake, and scenic tours of the lake are offered.

Increasing travel by motorized vehicles in the 20^th century saw growth in demand for winter travel accommodations. Local groups began calling for the National Park Service to plow Yellowstone’s roads. However, the expense and difficulty of plowing the more than 140 miles of the Grand Loop Road, and the massive, view-obscuring snowbanks created by the plows, prompted the NPS to seek a different strategy for winter access.

In 1949, the NPS began allowing motorized oversnow vehicles inside park boundaries. Some of the first oversnow vehicles in the park were snowplanes, predecessors to snowmobiles. Snowplanes are designed to scoot across the snow on skis while propellers attached to the cab push the vehicle forward. Modern snowmobiles, invented in the 1950s, quickly became more popular than the older, bulky snowplanes. By the 1960s, recreation companies and park concessioners were renting snowmobiles to visitors and running tours in snowcoaches, which have large tires to cross snow and increased seating capacity.

Over the next three decades, winter tourism boomed, as did the controversy over the use of snowmobiles. These vehicles caused noise and air pollution; and their ease of off-road traveling enabled many visitors to approach and harass wildlife and enter delicate thermal areas. After decades of fierce public debate, the NPS restricted snowmobiling in the park in 2003. Administrators set a daily cap for the number of snowmobile vehicles allowed in the park, issued standards for more environmentally friendly engines, and required all snowmobilers to travel in guided groups. Restrictions are still in place today. In the winter, only the road connecting the North and Northeast Entrances is plowed. Weather permitting, cars can travel from Gardiner, Montana, and the park’s headquarters in Mammoth to the communities of Silver Gate and Cooke City.