From Wolf Kill Sites to 20,000 Snow Stakes: The Jobs Behind Yellowstone

Every fall Yellowstone staff install nearly 20,000 snow stakes throughout the park to mark the road edge and guide snowplows and groomers. It is one of the many jobs the park highlighted in its 2021 #WhatWeDoWednesdays social media series. Here is a tour of them, from the thermal basins to the wastewater plants.

Winter: roads, mail and snow

An equipment operator grooms a road near Madison Junction (NPS).

• Grooming. The park maintains more than 180 miles of roads for oversnow vehicles. From mid-December to mid-March many entrances and attractions can be reached only by snowmobile or snowcoach, and crews groom the roads each night so travel is safe the next day. One operator says driving through a storm in the dark, with about 5 feet of visibility, makes 9 miles per hour feel very fast.
• Marking the road. Nearly 20,000 snow stakes go in each fall. They guide plows on roads kept clear and groomers on roads kept for snowmobiles and snowcoaches.
• Mail. Yellowstone has four seasonal post offices. When they close for winter, a courier makes a 150-mile trip twice a week to bring mail, supplies and equipment to 120 people living in parts of the park reachable only by snowmobile or snowcoach.
• Spring plowing. Clearing about 250 miles of roads and parking lots takes nearly three months. Plowing starts near Mammoth Hot Springs in early March and ends along the Beartooth Highway in late May, weather permitting. Spring storms can close roads and send plows back over them.

Science and wildlife

Geology staff photograph Cistern Spring after a Steamboat Geyser eruption (NPS).

• 3D models of thermal features. Staff photograph hydrothermal features from many angles and process the images into 3D models, a method called photogrammetry. The models let the park study how features change over time and help researchers model eruption styles.
• Wolf kill sites. Once a site is found, biologists ski or hike in to collect bone and teeth samples from the prey. The results feed the research that has run since wolves were reintroduced in 1995, which the park describes as 26 years of data.
• Climate. The park keeps Wyoming's oldest continuously operated weather station, which dates to 1894, plus a network of stations at different elevations. The park reports 30 fewer days a year with snow on the ground than in the 1960s.
• Volcano watch. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory brings together nine state and federal agencies to monitor volcanic, hydrothermal and earthquake activity. The campaign adds that there are no signs of an eruption soon. A University of Utah project with nodal seismometers tracks ground motion in three dimensions and may one day help predict geysers like Steamboat.
• Bison. Through its Bison Conservation Transfer Program the park has sent 154 brucellosis-free bison to the Fort Peck Tribes since 2019, and 82 of those went on to 17 other Tribes. With partners it plans to more than double the program's capacity, as an alternative to slaughter.
• Elk and people. A Penn State doctoral student, working with the park's social science program and the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, is testing how different messages change how close people walk up to elk in Mammoth Hot Springs. The results should improve wildlife-safety messages, especially in autumn, when elk are more aggressive during the rut.
• Archaeology. The park works with Salish Kootenai College on archaeological resources, adding to its database of sites and giving students field experience, and a tribal historic preservation student describes the partnership as a bridge between Indigenous and conventional archaeology.

A GIS technician downloads data from a climate monitoring site (NPS).

Buildings, power and machines

• A micro hydroelectric generator. Installed in 2012 as part of a water treatment system, it offsets about $75K in electricity costs and 1,500 tons of CO2 emissions each year, and should run for at least 30 years before a major overhaul.
• Energy audits. Staff use a blower door and thermal imaging to find air leaks in park housing. The park estimates a 15% saving in housing energy use across nearly 450 housing units.
• Fire alarms. The park maintains 300 intelligent alarm systems, and its technicians are certified under the National Fire Alarm Code to design, install, inspect and repair them.
• Radio network. Technicians visit hundreds of pieces of equipment on foot, skis and sometimes by helicopter. The network covers over 2 million acres and links field staff with emergency services through the communications center.
• Fleet. At about 1,000 vehicles, snowmobiles and trailers, Yellowstone has the largest fleet in the National Park Service. Its work on emissions earned the Green Fleet Award in 2020.
• Wastewater. Seven treatment facilities, including Old Faithful's activated-sludge system, treated 124 million gallons in 2020, which the park says would fill nearly 190 Olympic-sized pools.

History, health and visitors

• Historic vehicles. The collection holds more than 40 vehicles from the 1880s to the present, including a surrey the Army used around 1905, Tally-Ho stagecoaches, concessionaires' soft-top touring buses from the 1930s, a fire truck that can pump water from natural sources, two ranger scooters from the 1970s and a 2001 snowmobile.
• The research library. It holds over 20,000 books, movies, music and articles, and staff will answer questions by phone or email or in person at the Heritage and Research Center.
• Public health. The National Park Service is the only U.S. land management agency with an Office of Public Health. The year of the campaign marked 100 years of partnership with the U.S. Public Health Service, whose officers survey drinking water and wastewater systems, inspect food vendors and respond to illness outbreaks.
• Bear boxes. The park is putting bear-proof food boxes at all 2,000 frontcountry campsites, which protects visitors and spares animals that would otherwise be removed after learning to take human food. Crews and staff have installed over 1,000 in 10 years, and completion is expected in 2026.
• Trailhead signs. Of 1,100 miles of trails, all 96 trailheads should have new, matching signs designed in-house by the end of 2022.
• Hazard trees. Crews remove dangerous trees from campgrounds and picnic areas. During one windstorm a live tree fell on a campground host's RV; no one was hurt, but the vehicle was a total loss.
• Automated shuttles. Annual visits have grown by 1 million in a decade. A pilot of automated shuttles at Canyon Village is part of a wider effort to understand what crowding does to park resources, operations, visitor experience and gateway communities.
• Citizenship ceremonies. Since 2014, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and a federal magistrate judge, the park has hosted ceremonies at which 248 people from 59 countries took the Oath of Allegiance.
• Public-domain media. Photos, video and audio the staff produce are in the public domain and free to download.

Sources

• National Park Service, Explore Careers: Yellowstone National Park 2021 #WhatWeDoWednesdays; rewritten in hubnx's own words.