Yellowstone closed 6/13 - 15

I feel sorry for the businesses in Gardiner. Tourism is going to dry up for quite some time there.
 
gromit said:
Video of house falling into the river. This is near the park, not in it.

Click to expand...
That house should be fixed by the time Ronstar visits at the end of June. :D
 
Ronstar said:
We’re scheduled to roll through Yellowstone end of July. Should be fixed by then.
Click to expand...

July 2024? It took a very long time (at least 12 months) to re-work 6 miles of road between Canyon and Tower.
I also saw the Bear Tooth Pass is closed as well as many roads near Red Lodge.
 
UtahSkier said:
I arrive in West yellowstone on Friday in my rv. Looking for interesting activities outside the park, just in case.
Click to expand...

The Wolf and Bear Encounter, Center, not sure of the name, at the West entrance is well worth the time. The town of West Yellowstone can easily take a day to stroll around and check out. Very nice diners and places to relax and people watch or scenery too.
We stayed at the KOA West Yellowstone and it was nice if you are looking for places to stay.
Oh, and there was some sort of Mountain Man Rendezvous just out of town. I think we were there in June too, but also was there one year in August, so don't quote me on the timeline. Many people in Indian and Mountain Man costumes with many booths to both buy and participate in skills.
They also had a really well presented rodeo.
Wife and DIL did a horseback riding trail ride.
Probably some fishing if it's not all blown out. Guides are plentiful.

Grand Tetons are not far and Glacier is a day's drive away. But to get to Glacier, we went through the North Entrance, so not sure what roads are detour.
 
Last edited:
HarveyS said:
July 2024? It took a very long time (at least 12 months) to re-work 6 miles of road between Canyon and Tower.
I also saw the Bear Tooth Pass is closed as well as many roads near Red Lodge.
Click to expand...

July 2022. If the north entrance is closed, we’ll take the west exit. If the whole park is closed, I’ll take a different route to Glacier. We’ve been to Yellowstone a few times, so if we can’t visit the park this year no big deal.
 
UtahSkier said:
I arrive in West yellowstone on Friday in my rv. Looking for interesting activities outside the park, just in case.
Click to expand...

All of this is west of Yellowstone:
Mesa Falls in Ashton, ID is a nice day trip. You can hike along the falls and into the canyon. Very tough terrain in the canyon - but beautiful and you can fish there as well.
In Driggs, ID you can rent kayaks and float the Teton River.
Also nearby is Grand Targhee ski area that you can take a chairlift up in summer. Get sandwiches from the Victor Valley Market in Victor.
Darby Canyon Wind Cave is a great hike (near Alta, WY). Bring a flashlight as you can enter the cave and travel quite a ways. Moderate difficulty.
We also took a sunrise hot air balloon flight in Tetonia, ID.
Bon voyage
 
Western NC had a bad flood last September, and one winding mountain road had a washout similar to just one of the least signficant of the washouts seen in that video. It took state DOT about 3 weeks to open it. It was quite a project, and they worked really hard, 24/7.

The section had good access with nearby rip-rap quarries and on-line asphalt plants.

So what I'm seeing in Yellowstone is much more severe than that wash out, plus the road has multiple serious washouts. You just can't helicopter into the middle sections to repair them. And finally, just getting to the location is a project.

They'll have to set up housing, create a temporary asphalt plant, and so on. This won't happen fast. With the harsh winter, that will add even more barriers.
 
PatrickA5 said:
I feel sorry for the businesses in Gardiner. Tourism is going to dry up for quite some time there.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. The Gardiner folks need a Plan B and they need it fast.

OTOH, I bet room rates are dropping like a rock. What else is there to do near Gardiner? It looks like nice country. HarveyS's list is a good start. What else? State parks? National Monuments? Scenic trails and drives?

Oh, this unfortunate act of Mother Nature is another reason to not make non-refundable room reservations.
 
Last edited:
Chuckanut said:
OTOH, I bet room rates are dropping like a rock. What else is there to do near Gardiner? It looks like nice country. HarveyS's list is a good start. What else? State parks? National Monuments? Scenic trails and drives?
Click to expand...
It's 4-5 hours to get to any of HarveyS's list if you can't go through the park. I know this because most of those places are near Grand Targhee, where I've skied, and that really isn't too close to any Yellowstone entrance. And highway 89 is closed due to flooding north of Gardiner. I don't know if those roads are damaged like they are going into the park, but I wouldn't be jumping on any Gardiner hotel rooms right now, no matter the price.
 
Wow! We were just in Yellowstone N.P. yesterday. Rivers were definitely full to capacity and geysers and hot springs were amazing. We left just before dark and camped in the national forest.
 
Bad news for some park visitors:

https://apnews.com/article/floods-science-travel-business-709a543605963010b620de1ba981d08f
Yellowstone officials are hopeful that next week they can reopen the southern half of the park, which includes Old Faithful geyser. Closure of the northern part of the park will keep visitors from features that include Tower Fall, Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley, which is known for viewing wildlife such as bears and wolves
Still unresolved is how it will handle all the tourists when only half the park is open.

“One thing that we definitely know is that half the park cannot support all of the visitation,” Sholly said Tuesday. The park will likely implement some kind of reservation or timed-entry system to let people in without sending crowd sizes sky-high.
Click to expand...
 
Oh man that's really too bad. I feel for people who had trips planned. All the COVID stuff then this.

Yellowstone is usually a park where you feel you can breathe. You normally aren't boxed in like Yosemite or Zion .
 
If what happened last November in BC Canada Hwy 5 is any indication, then It will be at least a year before North Yellowstone area opens based on the footage I've seen. BC responded surprisingly quickly. They had the benefit of construction crews already on site working on an oil pipeline. And Hwy 5 (a.k.a, Coquihalla hwy) is a MAJOR arterial between Vancouver and the interior to Calgary/Edmonton. The roads are still being repaired but were open to limited travel within 3 months. Work is still expected to last a year. I have witnessed this first hand having a place in Sun Peaks and travel between Seattle and Sun Peaks often. I commend BC for the way they handled this disaster. https://globalnews.ca/news/8706687/reconstruction-coquihalla-bc-flood-summer-2022/ The roads in Yellowstone on the other hand will have to go through US bureaucratic crap to get bids and repairs crews working. And it is not a major highway system. I feel for the local economies that will suffer some tough times, but the economies away from Yellowstone (e.g., Glacier, RNP, and even the Utah/Grand Canyon parks) will experience a boom I expect as tourists adjust their plans.
 
RunningBum said:
It's 4-5 hours to get to any of HarveyS's list if you can't go through the park. I know this because most of those places are near Grand Targhee, where I've skied, and that really isn't too close to any Yellowstone entrance. And highway 89 is closed due to flooding north of Gardiner. I don't know if those roads are damaged like they are going into the park, but I wouldn't be jumping on any Gardiner hotel rooms right now, no matter the price.
Click to expand...

Wrong. RB, you usually have good advice but missed the mark here by a mile (or maybe about 200 miles).

Victor, ID is a 1h50 drive (100miles) from West Yellowstone. Which is where UtahSkier said they would be when they asked for other ideas. Victor is the most distant suggestion - everything else is closer to West.

I know this because I just did the drive last Sept., and the the Sept. before that. Oh, and Apple Maps verified my memory. And Gardiner is nowhere near West Yellowstone so the fact the 89 is closed north of Gardiner is irrelevant.

The Teton Valley in Idaho is a great back-up plan should Yellowstone be restricted (which will put extra stress on Grand Teton NP). Especially from West.
 
Ronstar said:
We’re scheduled to roll through Yellowstone end of July. Should be fixed by then.
Click to expand...

On the news they said it could be closed for months. Just check when you are close.
 
OK... you can blame me (possibly like W2R's"weeee"?)

We'd canceled our Yellowstone trip a few weeks ago, (we had two long (60 ft) pull-through sites for a week!! those take very early reservations to get!):

-- sibling that we'd planned to be with couldn't go, as they'd lost their house in the Boulder area fire end of last year
-- we also sold our trailer and then the truck
That's probably what did it

As far as repair.... we'd closed out the season a few years ago at Fishing Bridge, which then took much longer to finish than expected. I can't imagine road and bridge work would be anywhere near as easy, as I know that some of the areas washed out have no real alternative routes. I'm reminded of that I-70 corridor just east of Glenwood Springs in CO, and how many years it took to complete.

We'd planned on the Cody side for entry, as that's the easiest to get to Fishing Bridge, but with the damage that also means that there's nothing available north of it (those roads going from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel on the Grand Loop Rd to Tower Junction would all be potentially damaged) and that's a long way to get to the other side if the Norris Canyon Rd can't be used.

As far as the Idaho side- -
we've stayed in Victor before, after the park, as it's a not-to- difficult trip into Jackson (but the road is a 10% grade, with switchbacks and you need the proper equipment (heavy duty, which we had) to pull a load up - - it's closed to truckers part of the year and during really bad weather. There's just no way that you are going to make a commute into the park from there (Tetons are possible, but not the park). ...and I'd also say that Victor itself is very small with few services, including camping sites... hence the trip to Jackson, and the road to Swan Valley (on 26) is not difficult ... otherwise it's a long way out of the way to get to Rexburg.
West Yellowstone has far more availability, with more services... but much more pricey (as would be expected). It's got a lot more sites, a lot more traffic, and delays into the park appear to also be increasing; it used to be the "easy way" as others used the main south entrance, with its noted very long lines, after getting off the plane at Jackson airport.

[edit: in the last trip a few years ago, we also wanted to head up back to Glacier NP... but it had a very big fire that took out a number of campsites (Avalanche, Sperry) and affected others and it was closed. I assume that they might be in operation now... but you need to confirm ]
 
Last edited:
My parents lived in Livingston, MT for some time and we always went in the north entrance to Yellowstone. We went on an amazing river float trip out of Gardiner, got in the hot springs pool at Chico's lodge, went horseback riding at Chico's, and even did a dog sled excursion one winter. It is very sad for the people of Gardiner. That is such a gorgeous area of our country.
 
I'm so glad we went in 2019. We flew into Jackson and took the south entrance, and did most of the main loop. It was the last week of the season (september), and we went there thinking "late summer/fall" but knew they were due for cold.
Our first night, snow started during dinner. By the 2nd full day, the northern half of the park was a winter wonderland. The canyon/falls area an absolute postcard of ice and snow and christmas trees. Mini snowmen left by earlier visitors in each spot.

The damage we're all seeing is from 3 days ago, and those rivers weren't slowing down. It will probably get worse before it gets better, so if I had plans this year I'd be looking at going elsewhere entirely, to avoid putting any more burden on the system at this point.
 
HarveyS said:
Wrong. RB, you usually have good advice but missed the mark here by a mile (or maybe about 200 miles).

Victor, ID is a 1h50 drive (100miles) from West Yellowstone. Which is where UtahSkier said they would be when they asked for other ideas. Victor is the most distant suggestion - everything else is closer to West.

I know this because I just did the drive last Sept., and the the Sept. before that. Oh, and Apple Maps verified my memory. And Gardiner is nowhere near West Yellowstone so the fact the 89 is closed north of Gardiner is irrelevant.

The Teton Valley in Idaho is a great back-up plan should Yellowstone be restricted (which will put extra stress on Grand Teton NP). Especially from West.
Click to expand...
I guess I wasn't clear. I was responding to Chuckanut's post about Gardiner, cheap room rates there, and what else was around there (Gardiner), using your list as a start. Gardiner (North entrance) is 4-5 hours from your list.
 
The Yellowstone is just about ready to go over the bank at my place. Three years ago it flooded in my area and dozens of homes were bulldozed after the water finally receded. Roads gone all over that area and roads at ranch were washed away too. The flood was called the 100-year flood and did enormous damage and still see affects today. In places the river was out of its bank by 4 miles. I knew almost all the people that lost their homes. I had avalanches of mud from the hills that caused issues at the ranch.

The Yellowstone is a wild river with no dams and has a mind of its own. I really don't see those on the north entrance getting done soon or even getting done in the same place they are now. I have been across them many times and isn't fun to see the pictures.
 
We never saw that route until the devastating videos of it. We always flew or drove to West Yellowstone and into the park there, and the one driving trip we exited out through the Tetons to the south. We stayed at Mammoth a couple of times but did not go north of there.
I could fly there in 1:40 and they hid the keys on the rental car for me, so we did a few weekends there.
 
2C76022E-AEA2-4AF6-88AF-9D879317EA35.jpg

I’ve rafted Yankee Jim canyon, which is just outside of the park heading towards Livingston. This is ridiculous.

Road between Gardiner and Mammoth (north entrance) will be lucky to open NEXT year, imo.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom