- [Narrator] It's a sunny winter morning
on Mount Saint Helens.
The wind is down, the snow is settled,
and people are coming out to play.
- [Man] Hey, this thing is a magnet, this volcano,
this monument, it's drawing people from everywhere.
It's quiet, it's clean, the mountain air.
This is why I get out here.
- [Kerri] I think St. Helens has some of the best skiing
in the area.
I've skied Mount Hood.
I just really like St. Helens, I keep coming back.
- [Narrator] Monument managers estimate that on average
50,000 snowmobilers, 1600 climbers,
and up to 16,000 skiers arrive each winter.
Such heavy use is leading to conflict among users.
Pushing 70, Don Mason hasn't slowed down yet.
His snowmobile allows him to rip around the mountain
at speeds of over 60 miles an hour.
It's something he looks forward to every weekend.
- [Don] We've always been here.
And of course, we tend to stay here too.
- [Narrator] When Don first rode Mount Saint Helens,
it was a classic Cascade peak towering
over densely wooded national forest land.
But when St. Helens erupted in 1980,
it created an eerie moonscape of ash and mud.
It was no longer a national forest with millions of acres
of valuable timber.
So the government changed how it managed the landscape.
The Mount Saint Helens National Monument,
created in 1982, protects the crater and much
of the devastated north side for science.
The south side was opened up to provide easy access
for recreation.
But unlike in other protected areas, such as wilderness
or national parks, there are few restrictions
on what people can do here.
- [Kerri] I think there's room for everyone
in the right place, and I don't think the National Monument
is the right place for snowmobiles.
- Kerri Meyer frequently escapes winter in the city
by making a 65 mile drive from Portland.
Once here, she tries to leave it all behind
by heading out on skis.
- They just seem to take up a lot of room.
Their presence is large.
You hear them for a long ways, smell them for a long way.
And they go faster than everyone else.
- [Narrator] She'd rather not have to ski within earshot
of snowmobiles.
But she's here, like everyone else, because there's
no other mountain in the Cascades quite like it.
But everyone must come here first.
- The area that we're in here,
Marble Mountain Sno-Park area,
is really known for winter recreation.
About half of the winter sports activity that takes place
on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest takes place
right outta this area here.
- [Narrator] By design, everyone is corralled
into the same sno-park.
This is where tensions run hottest.
- It's a nightmare at times.
It used to be that we could, cross-country skiers
and snow shoers, could pull into the parking lot
and there would be quite a bit of room.
Well now, of course, the snowmobilers are,
they're dragging their motor homes up here.
They're driving big campers with trailers
that'll carry two or four snowmobiles.
And so they really clogged the sno-park.
- [Narrator] Klindt Vielbig started cross-country skiing
40 years ago.
It's his way to escape the growing crowds and commotion
at developed downhill ski areas.
- When a snowmobile goes by here sometimes on a quite day,
you can smell it for five minutes.
It just hangs in the air; it's just nauseating.
I probably get enough of that in Portland
behind buses downtown or something.
- [Narrator] Don agrees concerns over noise and pollution
should be addressed, not with new regulations
but with technology.
- Okay yeah, this is an Arctic Cat.
It's one of the first ones that came with a 4-stroke engine.
Came out two years ago.
It's a good old four-cycle engine.
And it's quiet. (engine cranking)
First of all, you have to turn the key off.
(engine revving)
There she is, it's running.
It sounds like a Geo Metro (laughs).
It sounds like a Toyota.
- [Narrator] But the new machines lack power.
And power is what this terrain demands.
- [Don] That's what happens when you get stuck.
- [Narrator] Out on the trail with the track riders,
you can feel the thrill of dropping into steep gullies,
climbing near vertical hills, and racing across open flats.
It's this unique terrain that makes the area so popular
with snowmobilers.
What took us 15 minutes, would take an expert skier all day.
Even the looming horizon of the crater
is suddenly close at hand.
- [Man] To get to the top, it usually takes about 30 minutes
depending on which way you go.
If you find a straight route, you can go up in,
I mean, three minutes, four minutes full throttle.
- [Narrator] Adrenaline thrills comes easy
in a place like this.
But for many snowmobilers, what's more important
is a sense of family and camaraderie that comes
from group activity.
- The problem is people really are coming
to Mount Saint Helens wanna be up in this area,
up around the volcano.
And so that's where the dilemma comes.
How do you provide solitude and snowmobile use
in the same area because this is where the people wanna be?
- [Narrator] Reed Gardner is deputy manager
of Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument.
- Nowhere in the legislation does it say anything
about solitude, you know, that type of thing.
It talks about resource protection and allowing
recreation opportunities to occur.
This is an area right now that's open to snowmobiles
and cross-country ski use.
And you need to expect not to have a lot of solitude
when you come here.
- [Narrator] And talk of banning or restricting snowmobiles
is not likely to lead very far.
- It's multiple use.
If you don't like it, then you've got wilderness areas.
Go over there and use them.
Of course, one of the little things
that probably not too many people know,
there's only two mountains in the state of Washington
that we can climb, we the snowmobilers.
And we're not gonna lose either one of them.
One of them's Mount Saint Helens, the other one's Mount Baker.
- There'll probably be more demand for winter recreation
opportunities, and we may not be able to provide
all those, probably won't be able to provide
all those opportunities that people are looking for.
- [Narrator] Monument managers are expanding the sno-park
to ease tensions and have created speed limits in places
where users frequently come into contact.
They hope never to have to decide about what kind of user
does or doesn't belong in such a beautiful, fragile,
and increasingly crowded place.
- Snowmobilers do care about the environment.
We're not here to just tear it up.
I think that's important to know.
And we clean up what we bring in.
We just like coming out here and having a good time
and seeing all the beautiful things.
So that's why we're here.
- Mount Saint Helens is special.
It may not be a designated wilderness,
but it's special, it's incredible.
And it needs to be preserved, period.