Yellowstone officials say they still aren’t sure how snowmobiles or snowcoaches might return to the park this winter after a judge rejected the latest version of its Winter Use Plans.

The uncertainty comes after U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan vacated the plans that would have allowed 540 best-available-technology snowmobiles in the park each day, saying the Winter Use Plans violate the Organic Act and go against the advice of National Park Service scientists. Judge Sullivan issued the decision in Sept. 15.

In several recent conference calls, Yellowstone officials told outfitters that the park is still trying to figure out how to proceed with snowmobiles this winter.

Yellowstone National Park spokesman Al Nash said superintendent Suzanne Lewis does not have the same ability to issue a temporary plan for winter motorized use that she used in 2004 when Sullivan threw out an earlier plan.

“The bottom line is that after we looked at everything, the rule that is valid and on the books says that snowmobiles and snow coaches are not allowed in the park this winter unless something changes,” said Nash.

“We’re looking to see what we might be able to do administratively in order to provide motorized access in the park this winter. We’re working on it, but we don’t have an answer to that question yet.”

The 2004 rule that gave temporary authority to operate snowmobiles and snow coaches in Yellowstone expired at the end of the 2006-07 season, Nash said, “which is why the superintendent of the park can’t just write some memo.”

The September ruling came as government attorneys argued a second case over the snowmobile plan in front of U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne. Historically, Brimmer has ruled in favor of motorized use in national parks and elsewhere.

“We recognize that we have an outstanding issue with a judge in Wyoming,” Nash said. “We don’t know what that might do.”

In the meantime, Nash said the park is moving forward with plans to open for snowmobiling.

“We have to continue to move forward,” he said. “We certainly can’t wait in anticipation of what a judge may or may not do.”

Jeff Golightly, general manager of Togwotee Mountain Lodge, said the continued uncertainty is taking a toll on Jackson Hole outfitters.

“Winter is coming up in 85 days,” he said. “It’s going to snow and we’re going to be operating snowmobiles. The variable is whether we go into the park.”

Golightly said Togwotee Mountain Lodge operates on a number of permits in national forests as well as the park, but he said other outfitters aren’t so lucky.

“A lot of my competitors, 80 percent of their permits are in Yellowstone,” he said. “Those are the people I’m worried about.”

“The level to which we can plan is a little challenging this year,” Golightly continued. “It affects peoples lives. It’s going to affect the draw going into Teton County and the draw into Northwest Wyoming. And, it could affect dollars coming into the community. I think people are frustrated.”

Earthjustice filed the lawsuit for several conservation groups including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the National Parks Conservation Association after the National Park Service adopted the snowmobile plan in December 2007.

In his decision, Sullivan said: “In contravention of the Organic Act, the plan clearly elevates use over conservation of park resources and values and fails to articulate why the plan’s “major adverse impacts” are “necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of the park.”

NPS “also fails to provide a rational explanation for the source of the 540 snowmobile limit,” he said.

“According to the NPS’s own data,” Sullivan said, the  Winter Use Plans will “increase air pollution, exceed the use levels recommended by [National Park Service] biologists to protect wildlife, and cause major adverse impacts to the natural soundscape in Yellowstone.”

Despite this, he said, NPS found that the impacts are wholly acceptable and “utterly fails to explain this incongruous conclusion.”