Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Yellowstone National Park & the winter use debate: community resilience and tourism impacts in the gateway community of West Yellowstone, MT(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) Hamming, Carl Alan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Julia Hobson Haggerty; Julia H. Haggerty, Ray Rasker and William Wyckoff were co-authors of the article, 'Community resilience in a tourist town' submitted to the journal 'Annals of Tourism Research' which is contained within this thesis.This study explores the socioeconomic impacts of the National Park Service's winter use management of Yellowstone National Park on the gateway community of West Yellowstone, Montana. As a highly specialized, tourism-dependent gateway community, the National Park Service's management decisions that affect park visitation also impact the economic viability of West Yellowstone. Previously, scholars have documented the challenges presented by tourism economies and 'resortification' in small communities, the process of a small town being converted into a resort destination with numerous vacation properties, increasing absentee business ownership, a highly seasonal economy and escalating real estate prices. Less is known about how the challenges of resortification and industrial tourism interact with the dimensions of community resilience within a gateway community. Community resilience exists as a mechanism for rural and remote communities to identify vulnerabilities, buffer change, develop resources and promote local progress during periods of uncertainty and stress. This paper explores how the snowmobiling restrictions and winter use management of Yellowstone National Park impacted the community resilience of the tourism-dependent gateway community of West Yellowstone. The debate over winter use management and snowmobiling restrictions in Yellowstone National Park drained the community resources of West Yellowstone and negatively impacted the economic viability of local wintertime businesses. Consequently, challenges of resortification intensified and diminished several dimensions of West Yellowstone's community resilience. The mixed methods approach provides insight to how West Yellowstone's social and economic well-being have been affected since the snowmobiling restrictions were implemented and how the tourism landscape of the entire Yellowstone region has changed. The case study of West Yellowstone contributes knowledge of the economics of gateway communities, the implications of federal land management decisions, and the community resilience of tourism-dependent, gateway towns.Item Environmental factors influencing recreational trail condition(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1994) Urie, Wendi AnnItem Erosional impact of hikers, horses, off-road bicycles, and motorcycles on mountain trails(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1991) Seney, Joseph PaulItem The relationships between disturbances in stock camps and the occurrence of spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Montana and Idaho(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1995) Milner, Gary MartinItem Campsite impacts and the limits of acceptable change planning process : a case study of the Jedediah Smith Wilderness(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2007) Grossenburg, Chad G.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jian-yi LiuThe Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) planning process is a means by which planners attempt to preserve naturalness while facilitating public use in federally designated wilderness areas. The biophysical condition of campsites is often used as one indicator of naturalness in LAC plans. Despite the emergence of scientific methods to monitor campsites, campsite standards often neglect to reflect the findings of this science. The LAC process was used in Wyoming's Jedediah Smith Wilderness, which is situated east of fast growing Teton County, Idaho and west of popular Grand Teton National Park. Teton County and many other Western counties next to wilderness have outgrown other counties further from wilderness. Grand Teton Park receives tens of thousands of backcountry campers that may access the Wilderness depending on the degree of connectivity between the two protected areas. Many other wildernesses also share borders with popular national parks.