Quiet time: Yellowstone winding down from historic summer season
By BEN PIERCE Chronicle Outdoors
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK – There’s a snowman waving to passersby at the height of Craig Pass in the heart of Yellowstone National Park. He’s looking a little limp these days, holding out for colder temperatures.
Bad news for him: he’s waving under sunny skies with mild weather forecast to continue for the remainder of the week.
Good news for the rest of us: the park is nearly vacant, the roads are clear and the weather is awesome. Plus, there’s one more weekend to explore Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon before winter’s icy grasp envelopes Yellowstone for another winter.
Yellowstone’s interior roads close to automobile traffic on Monday at 8 a.m. The park traditionally closes the roads after the first full weekend in November, though temporary road closures are common earlier in the fall. As always the road over Dunraven Pass from Canyon Village to Tower Fall closed on Oct. 12. Additionally, the road from North Entrance to Silver Gate via Mammoth Hot Springs, Roosevelt and Cooke City remains open through the winter.
Park spokesman Al Nash said conditions in Yellowstone are typical for this time of year: snow in the higher elevation with cold temperatures and occasional squalls causing poor driving conditions in the valleys.
“A lot of Yellowstone’s interior is between 7,700-7,800 feet with higher elevations in the passes,” Nash said on Monday. “A lot of places people are familiar with in the park are twice the elevation of Bozeman and that makes a big difference in terms of temperature and weather.
“You can’t just look out your window in Bozeman and assume it will be the same in Yellowstone.”
Beginning in October, the National Park Service advises visitors to be prepared for winter conditions and plan for flexible trip times. By this time of year the park’s seasonal employees have left for the season and finding that roadside soda pop or hotdog might not be as easy as it is in July.
Instead you’ll find a Yellowstone comparatively devoid of tourists. It’s so silent you can hear the sound of bison sweeping lazily through the grass, the crunch of a coyote punching through the snow crust after field mice.
It is quite a change following the busiest season in Yellowstone’s 138-year history.
Yellowstone has already broken its annual visitation record and the park has yet to count visitors for October, November and December. Through the first nine months of 2010, 3.4 million visitors passed through the park’s gates. Record visitation numbers were recorded for the months of June, July, August and September.
Nash cited three major factors influencing the uptick in Yellowstone’s visitation this season.
“Most Americans are looking to get away (on vacation), even though we are going through some economic tough times,” Nash said. “You can scale up or down the expense of a trip to Yellowstone more easily than other popular visitor destinations. And frankly our entrance fee of $25 for a family for seven days is a great value.”
Nash also point to the success of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ “National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” which first aired on public television stations across the country this time last year and again in February and March.
Yellowstone, with its plethora of natural wonders and historical significance as the country’s first national park, was profiled prominently in the series. Nash believes the success of Burns’ work led to an influx of public interest and park visitation at Yellowstone.
Finally, Nash pointed to the efforts of state offices of tourism in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho that have aggressively marketed the Northern Rockies and Yellowstone in their advertising campaigns.
The effect on the park and surrounding communities has been significant, according to Bucky McCormick of Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone.
“Town was a zoo this summer,” McCormick said. “There were just people all over the place. We had a really strong June, July and August … It was definitely noticeably busier than most years.”
While things have certainly wound down in Yellowstone since the end of tourist season, the park is still attracting its share of visitors. Among them are anglers that ply the waters of the Madison River seeking brown trout that run upstream out of Hebgen Lake to spawn.
“We get folks that come specifically to fish the Madison during the fall,” McCormick said. “Some of our customers from Cody (Wyo.) and Idaho Falls (Idaho) are here now. But, as late in the season as we are now, there are more folks from Bozeman, Livingston and Gardiner.”
Nash said those who choose to visit Yellowstone between now and the closing of the park’s interior roads on Monday need to travel in vehicles equipped with snow tires.
“We recognize that some of our visitors may not have winter driving experience even this time of year,” Nash said. “We are conservative about the roads and if we are concerned about visitor safety we will temporarily close a road section until we can get a plow.”
Nash said that while the park’s interior roads are closing for the season on Monday, the park is not. Snowmobile and snowcoach season begins in six weeks. Until then, the park will remain open to non-motorized travel.
“We will be open,” Nash said. “Once we get passed this weekend, we will look for lots of great snow and all the wonders that winter offers.”
For updated information on road conditions and closures in Yellowstone National Park, call (307) 344-2117.
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