Call of the wild — via cellphone?

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Natural forces over millennia created the geysers, peaks and canyons that fascinate Yellowstone visitors. But a newer feature is emerging on the 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 cell towers in national parks, officials nationwide 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 in between, the Park Service has directed each of its 391 park areas to include a telecommunications plan as part of any planning.

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

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

A special experience

It also has disappointed environmental groups that believe any cellular service in the nation's oldest national park needs to be 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 Association. "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 said it's logical to extend wireless service into highly developed areas. Their plan calls for one additional tower beside the historic Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and for improving service in the Canyon and Tower-Roosevelt areas.

It also would consolidate some of the telecommunications equipment that mars certain parts of the park, such as the mass of antennas that crowns Bunsen Peak, a popular hiking destination near Mammoth Hot Springs.

"Yellowstone is not one place," said Tom Ollitt, the park official who oversaw the plan. "It's three to four different experiences. The developed areas have a different experience than anywhere else in Yellowstone."

Park officials said they drew up the proposal after being approached in 2004 by cellular companies that wanted to build 27 towers and provide full coverage throughout the park. They acknowledge that cell signals aimed at developed sites can spill into nearby forests and lakes but hope signs advising visitors to be courteous will cut noise.

Limiting the impact

Other national parks have weighed how best to accommodate cellphone users without destroying the scenery. Activists hired a consultant to advise the park service on how to conceal a cellphone tower erected at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in Virginia.

Officials of the few national parks or recreation areas that have drawn up telecommunications plans said that, like Yellowstone, they hope to limit structures to sites that are paved.

Three cellular towers rise above developed areas at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and the park's plan calls for restricting others to marinas or visitor centers. At Golden Gate National Recreation Area, officials said policy is to minimize cell signals in the park's rural areas while accommodating cellphone providers and tenants in facilities in San Francisco.

Cell towers first were allowed on federal land by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Although the House Commerce Committee, which drew up the law, said places such as Yellowstone would not be appropriate sites for cell towers, the act indicated that towers should be rejected only if they would conflict with the use of the land.

Yellowstone long has relied upon mounted antennas to support its microwave-based telephone system. Radio towers provide communications for rangers' devices and signals for commercial stations in neighboring towns. The first cell tower, built in 1999, rose 100 feet on a hillside south of Old Faithful.

In response to complaints, the park lopped 20 feet off the tower in 2005. The new plan calls for moving it and concealing it in a stand of trees. There are five towers in the park.

Opponents of extending cell and wireless service at Yellowstone contend the towers never should have been allowed. The signal they emit can spill into hiking trails away from developed areas, critics said.

"This is a commercial service that is using public resources and land," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The introduction of wireless service is an added insult, he added. "The park service is saying unplug and connect with nature, but when you come, you can check your e-mail and trade stocks."

Yellowstone does not permit televisions in its hotel rooms, but officials contend that wireless Internet is different. "It's a way to get information," Ollitt said. For example, visitors could research bison after bumping into them in the park.

Uploading photos?

Snapping photos of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone on a recent afternoon, Bic Ngo brightened when he heard the park might introduce wireless. "I'd love to get my pictures on Facebook tonight," Ngo said.

But Ngo, 33, wasn't sure how many modern conveniences should be available in the park. The Toronto man liked the idea of a place where no one could track him down by phone. "It's kind of nice to not be located," he said.

At Old Faithful, Dan Harrison sat on a bench, waiting for the geyser to erupt. He had turned off his phone and wasn't happy to hear there were places in the park where it might work.

"It destroys everything that's here," said Harrison, 50, who drives a bus in a Canadian park in Alberta. "People are talking and yakking rather than watching this."

Nearby, Cole Hauser, 25, and Shawn Stufflebean, 23, were talking excitedly on their cellphones and waving at the Web camera perched in a tree in front of the geyser.

The two had left Wichita, Kan., to find work in Wyoming's energy industry, and the connectivity in Yellowstone allowed them to talk to their families for the first time in days.

"I don't know why people would be against it," Hauser said. "There's a lot of people here who are far from their families."