Cellphones in Yellowstone?

Reporting from Yellowstone National Park — Natural forces over millennia created the geysers, peaks and canyons that fascinate visitors here. But a newer feature is emerging on this stunning landscape -- cellphone towers.

One juts out from a hill behind Old Faithful; another crowns one of the park's most prominent peaks. Hikers occasionally stumble across cellphone equipment on trails around Mammoth Hot Springs. Visitors chatting on their phones have become as common in some areas as wandering bison.

After years of complaints from environmental groups about the proliferation of cellphone towers in national parks, officials here and across the country are asking: How wired do we want our wilderness?

"It is an issue that we have been grappling with," said Lee Dickinson, who coordinates cellular permits for the National Park Service. "There are some people who feel lost without an electronic connection, and there are other people who feel that cellphones shouldn't be in parks at all."

Seeking a position somewhere in between, the National Park Service has directed each of its 391 park areas to include a telecommunications proposal as part of any planning efforts.

Yellowstone officials issued a plan in September that proposes a modest expansion of cellphone use in developed areas and the installation of wireless Internet service in the park's hotels. Cellphone service would be kept out of the park's vast backcountry and off most of its roads.

But the proposed expansion has become a flashpoint in the debate over whether visitor convenience in national parks should trump the preservation of pristine nature.

And it has disappointed environmental groups who think any cellular service in the nation's oldest national park needs to be sharply limited.

"When people come to Yellowstone, it's one of the most special times in their lives," said Tim Stevens of the National Parks Conservation Assn. "One of the things that makes it that is the ability to hear the splash of a geyser . . . and not having that sound drowned out by somebody having a conversation with their family back in New Jersey."

Yellowstone officials say it's only logical to extend wireless service into already highly developed areas. Their plan calls for one additional tower by the historic Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and for improving service in the Canyon and Tower-Roosevelt areas.