Road access in Yellowstone National Park has improved as the park’s north entrance and the road to Mammoth Hot Springs opened Sunday after major flooding in June caused road damage.
Regular visitor traffic resumed as the park’s north entrance in Gardiner, Montana, and the road between the north entrance and Mammoth Hot Springs (Old Gardiner Road) opened after contractors completed striping Saturday, a Oct. 28 update said.
Some locations on the road will have one-way traffic and short delays as minor road construction continues.
“Beginning June 12, unprecedented amounts of rainfall caused substantial flooding, rockslides, and mudslides within Yellowstone National Park,” a National Park Service website said. “Historic water levels caused severe damage to roads, water and wastewater systems, power lines and other critical park infrastructure.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Twitter praised the team that helped in the flood recovery.
“Climate change is impacting every corner of our country,” Haaland tweeted. “When I visited @YellowstoneNPS after historic floods, I saw roads torn apart and devastating damage. Hats off to the @NatlParkService team for quickly rebuilding after the storm so that we can all enjoy this special place.”
Since June, the repairs included modernizing the Old Gardiner Road by turning the 1880s single-lane dirt road into two lanes, the update said. Infrastructure funding of about $60 million has been used for extensive repairs.
“This is really all hands on deck,” Fox Weather reported Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cameron Sholly as saying. “For this [flooding] to happen in mid-June, going into a busy summer, it's just catastrophic for some of these local economies. For us to get these roads rebuilt and ready to go, not only for the winter season but going into next year especially, is absolutely essential and something we couldn't have done by ourselves.”
As of Tuesday most Yellowstone National Park’s roads are closed in preparation “for the winter season and snowmobile and snowcoach travel,” but “the road between the north entrance and the northeast entrance is open year-round,” the National Park Service website said.
