Three Weeks After the Flood

Since Monday, June 13th the North Entrance into Yellowstone National Park from Gardiner, MT has been closed due to the total destruction of the road connecting our town to the park.  It's been a terrible thing for all of the residents and seasonal businesses who need strong summers to make it through the lean times of winter.  It has turned this little bustling community into a ghost town for the past three weeks.

While the park was partially opened after a brief closure to allow the National Park Service to evaluate the damage done by the "thousand year flood" . . . the limited access afforded businesses needing to get into the park, was restricted to just essential services.  For employees cut off from the park, we received news last Thursday that the NPS was going to allow us some ability to enter the park for recreational purposes this July 4th holiday weekend. 

 

Entry is via the Old Gardiner Road (OGR), which was originally a one-lane dirt road that traverses over the sage hillside overlooking both Gardiner, Mammoth and the canyon below.  The NPS road crew has worked very hard to make the road suitable for transportation not only of warehouse box trucks like my employer YPSS uses, but also other administrative and commercial traffic.  I used the road both Sunday (in only) and Monday (in and out) and was very impressed with how good the road is given the challenges of shoring up a road not intended for such traffic.

The views are beautiful, given the vastness being up that high.  Throughout the five mile drive, I saw numerous elk.  Surely they were wondering "Where did all of these cars come from?"

Entry is limited to specific windows of time, providing control necessary for one-way traffic.  They tightly manage this so as to provide alternate direction traffic without incident.  For my trip into the park from Gardiner, the first time frame begins at 7:00am.  Here I am in line at the gate, as seen on the park's webcam, caught by a friend.

With the latest return out of the park from Mammoth scheduled for 4:00pm-5:30pm, I knew I wouldn't want to rush on Sunday, so I planned to go the long way home, via West Yellowstone, Big Sky and Bozeman.  I figured it probably added in reality about 125 miles and 2 hours.  But to give you an idea of that routing, here's what Google provides. 

And if I'm honest . . . I actually enjoyed my evening journey taking the longer route.  Hwy 191 goes through an underutilized part of the park . . . one I frankly didn't even know existed!  I had to stop to take a photo of the park sign, as one would see it enter coming from the down into the area north of the town of West Yellowstone.

This was the staging area for the convoy home from Mammoth on Monday afternoon.

 

So for 2022, this is our new normal.  It is my hope we (employees working in Yellowstone NP) will be able to continue to use the OGR for recreational purposes throughout the rest of the summer.  It would truly suck to have to drive "the long way around" in both directions to be able to enjoy the park this year.  It would be a huge time commitment plus probably $50 in gas round-trip. Only time will tell.