We have put together this page to help you stay informed about Yellowstone National Parks re-opening after the flooding. Firstly, we encourage you NOT TO CANCEL. The communities in and around the park are not all corporate owned. A majority are family owned (including ours). For many of us, this is not a passive income endeavor and many of us live month to month and don’t have the backings of a national car rental company, national hotel chain or national vacation company. This has a lot to do with why you are treated so well. This is Montana hospitality and we greatly appreciate your business and support of our communities. Keep in mind that Yellowstone National Park is 2,221,776 acres. It will take you more than a few days to ‘see it all.’ This page is a work in progress and we will be updating it as much as possible in the coming days.
The Roads
UPDATE: June 30, 2022
Exciting news! Yellowstone National Park has stated that they will be opening the Northern Loop which includes about 93% of the road ways starting July 2nd. This will open access from Norris Junction to Mammoth Hot Springs, Mammoth Hot Springs to Tower-Roosevelt, and Tower-Roosevelt to Canyon Junction (also known as Dunraven pass).
This does mean that the Northern entrance through Gardiner is still closed as well as the Northeast entrance through Cooke City. However we have been advised that they will be allowing people to walk some of the road from Tower-Roosevelt to Cooke City (known as Lamar Valley). They are also hoping that within a few weeks they will be able to allow bicycle access to a portion of Lamar Valley as well.
June 22, 2022
The southern loop to the park, shown on the right hand in green, will be open again at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. This will open 159 miles of the 166 miles of the loop. The damage that you are seeing on the news is primarily in that 5 mile section from the North Entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs and from Tower-Roosevelt to Cooke City (34 total miles). Note that we have added the mileage between sites so that you can better estimate distances.
Getting in
Update: June 30, 2022
Starting July 2nd, 2022 Yellowstone National Park has announced that they will suspend the use of the Alternating License Plate System (ALPS). They will return to their normal entrance procedures. They have noted that the ALPS system worked very effectively at moderating traffic in the park, but now that they will have 93% of the park open they do not feel that they will need to moderate traffic. They will continue to monitor the visitor data and traffic counts to ensure that visitor usage is not overwhelming. They may reinstate ALPS if they feel that the visitor usage approaches an overwhelming capacity for the park and park resources.
June 22, 2022
So that the park does not get overwhelmed with visitors and to help protect resources, the park will be using something called Alternating License Plate System (ALPS). What does this mean?
- Visitors with proof of overnight reservations in the park will be permitted to enter regardless of license plate number. This includes hotels, campgrounds and backcountry reservations.
- Odd-numbered last digits on license plates can enter on odd days of the month
- Even-numbered last digits, including zero, on license plates, can enter on even days of the month
- If you rented from us, all of our license plates are numbered.
- For those of you renting more than one vehicle, we are trying to put you all in the same ending number (odd or even)
June 22, 2022
The parks northern loop, the circle up in red, will be opening in two weeks or less. We are updating our maps to provide more information and will put it here soon. This will allow visitors access to Dunraven Pass, Tower, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Norris opening visitor access to approximately 80 percent.
If you are curious about official news from the park, this link will take you to the official park page:
https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/flood-recovery.htm
