Yellowstone National Park rebounded quickly after historic flooding in June, reopening all of its gates except two just a couple of weeks after. Now the park has opening dates for the Gardiner and Cooke City entrances.
The main road to Gardiner has been severely damaged so the park is making the old Gardiner road from a gravel, lane road into a two lane one. Meanwhile, the park is renovating the main road to Cooke City. The north and northeast entrances to Yellowstone hope to be open to normal vehicle traffic by October 15.
Yellowstone’s Linda Veress said this should return normal winter access between Gardiner and Cooke City.
“For this short-term solution coming into winter, visitors will be able to drive on that road and out to Cooke City,” she said.
Veress said both of these are short-term solutions and the park will be planning permanent solutions.
“In the future, we will look at the alternatives that are least environmentally impacting, least visually impacting and the most resilient to future natural disasters,” said Veress.
Those long-term solutions will be part of a normal planning process so the public can provide input.
Both entrances are currently open for foot and bicycle traffic for a mile or two into the park.
