Peace Pact
Snowmobilers and skiers shake hands

click here for the official map of
XC Skiing & Snowmobile areas
in the Upper Wood River Valley (PDF—230 KB)
map copyright © 2001 E.B. Phillips

by Travis Purser

It was early April 2000 when Sun Valley resident Chuck Bohlke, while cross-country skiing 10 miles north of Ketchum, heard the explosion. 

He was on the west side of State Highway 75 in the north Wood River Valley, an area that had for the last several years become increasingly popular with both skiers and snowmobilers.

With a renewed interest in everything outdoors, more people were heading into the backcountry on their mountaineering skis to bag quiet slopes of pristine snow called “freshies.” But new, powerful snowmobiles were able to reach those same slopes, where older sleds could never venture.

Name-calling and fist-shaking had until then been the comparatively mild manifestations of the ensuing conflict.

Then, at around 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday, someone poured fuel over a $20,000 winter encampment set up by skiers at the base of the Boulder Mountains and lighted the encampment on fire.

“It was pretty loud,” said Bolhke, who was more than a mile and half away when something caught in the blaze exploded. “Certainly loud enough to get my attention. The smoke was pretty intense.”

For some in a coalition of skiers and snowmobilers who had been negotiating for months on a map to separate the sports, hope for a solution to the clash had also gone up in smoke.

The battle is being waged all over the country.

Without segregation, skiers fear they will eventually be driven away from prime slopes by ever-more-powerful “powder sleds” that roar across high alpine virgin snow carving deep swaths that they say make skiing dangerous. 

Snowmobilers claim a right to enjoy the same public land that skiers do.

By April 2000, the Winter Coalition—a group of five snowmobilers and five skiers from the Wood River Valley—had spent nearly 100 hours in meetings trying to solve the problem. 

Bill LeVere, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area supervisor, challenged the two user groups to map out segregated motorized and non-motorized zones in the Wood River Valley by October 2000—otherwise, he would do it for them.

The coalition was attempting to break new ground.

No legally binding recreational zoning agreement between the user groups had ever taken place.
So, the fire, it seemed, could not have come at a worse time.

What helped the Winter Coalition stick together through it all was the mutual agreement that whoever started the fire “is a criminal—period,” said Kim Nilsen, a coalition snowmobiler. The idea that both groups would eventually be better off if they cooperated also helped.

The group concentrated on understanding the fundamental differences of those with a need for combustion-engine power and those with a need for quiet.

That winter, the group took an excursion to partake in each other’s sports.

“We took them on a hair-raising snowmobile ride,” said Nilsen the following fall. “And they took us on a knee-breaking ski.”

“It took a long time for me to appreciate what it is skiers need to have a good experience,” he said.

“The skiers really do have a legitimate sport. It’s a fun thing to do, and likewise for the snowmobilers.”

Eventually, snowmobilers and skiers together helped rebuild outfitter Bob Jonas’ torched encampment.

The Winter Coalition “engendered respect on both sides,” said John Craig, a coalition member and self-proclaimed “hard-core skier.”

“Probably the biggest thing that came out of the meetings was acknowledgment that snow machines do have an effect on silent winter sports,” he said.

It worked. On Sept. 11, 2000, the coalition announced that it had designed a map that would divide the northern Wood River Valley into six areas open only to non-motorized use and four areas open to both uses.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Blaine County Recreation District printed maps for distribution at their offices. Volunteers made and installed signs delineating areas, though boundaries were designed to be easily identifiable using ridges, rivers and roads. And volunteers met with clubs to spread the word.

Snowfall that winter was so slight that some of the areas were not suitable for winter sports. That, many said, made it difficult to judge how well the new map worked, though they were pleased.

“I’d say it worked pretty well,” said LeVere. “In past years, I’d get anywhere from 50 to 100 letters from folks complaining about specific conflicts” between skiers and snowmobilers. But with the new zones, “I haven’t heard any complaints.”

From a skier point of view, the map could be better, said Craig, “but hopefully, it will keep the skiers satisfied and it will keep the snowmobilers satisfied. Both sides are better off now.”

Chris Klick, representing snowmobilers, said snowmobilers and skiers had come together like Republicans and Democrats after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. 

“I think the fires have gone out, and some friendships are budding,” said Nilsen. •