Those independent Westerners

The NPS doesn't want to keep spending money to clear snow off Sylvan Pass during the winter. Why is that? Here's why:

Only 97 snowmobiles used the east entrance this past winter, and no snow coach tours passed through the east gate. The park spends $325,000 each winter to keep Sylvan Pass open to snowmobiles and snow coaches.

Got that? That's over $3000 for every 'bile that enters the park from the east, essentially a federal subsidy for the town of Cody, Wyoming, and money the park could have used on its failing infrastructure.* The park would long ago have quit wasting all that money, except Cody businessmen make a lot of noise to their Senators. Their livelihood, they claim, depends on those visitors! Yes, the town of Cody will collapse if they lose - what? less than one hundred! - visitors during the course of the year. Just goes to show, any business is profitable when someone else is covering your expenses.

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* Although, truth be told, they'd probably just spend it on a kennel full of drug-sniffing dogs or some such.