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Posted by Ballpark Frank (24.237.94.196) on 07:27:14 05/17/14
In Reply to: Questions unanswered posted by Kent
SY and Kent,
If I remember correctly, this apparatus (both the structure and the cam) was placed by YCR originally. It was part of an effort to monitor winter activity in the Old Faithful area, as part of the effort to create a new Winter Management Plan. As I remember it, there were supposed to be some monitoring gear to measure a variety of environmental variables, like noise level in decibels and possibly CO or CO2 levels. I remember speaking with one of the individuals that was setting it up, when it first arrived. He explained that it was being placed as part of an effort to monitor the impact of motorized traffic in the area, particularly in winter.
This was in the era when members of certain advocacy groups were stationing themselves at various distances from the road between the West Entrance and Old Faithful in winter, with decibel meters to measure the noise produced by two stroke snowmobiles. They may have been the first to measure the CO and CO2 levels in the air being breathed by the NPS personnel at the entrance station. Having participated once, back in the mid-1990s, in the swarm entering through the West Entrance in winter, I can attest to the prevalence and apparent thickness of the "blue cloud" by the entrance station. It was nasty looking, even worse than L.A.'s historic smog or Denver's Brown Cloud!
If anyone should know the destiny of that fancy environmental monitoring unit, it should be the part of YCR that works closely with policy research, the area John Sacklin used to administer.
Ballpark
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