Crowds flock to Yellowstone as park reopens
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Throngs of tourists gleefully watched the legendary Old Faithful geyser shoot towering bursts of steaming water while others got stuck in “bison jams” on picturesque valley roads as visitors returned Wednesday for the partial reopening of Yellowstone National Park after destructive floods.
Park managers raised the gates at three of Yellowstone’s five entrances for the first time since June 13, when 10,000 visitors were ordered out of the park after rivers across northern Wyoming and southern Montana surged over their banks following a torrent of rainfall that accelerated the spring snowmelt. The cost and scope of the damage is still being assessed, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said Wednesday.
Empty roads and parking lots quickly grew busier by mid-morning as about 5,000 vehicles entered the park after getting through long lines that
stretched for several miles at one gate in the early morning — though a normal summer day draws about 10,000 vehicles, park officials said in a news release. The backups were gone by early afternoon.
Paul Nithyanand of Chennai, India, was one of 1,500 people who made their way to Old Faithfaul in the afternoon to see it erupt. Nithyanand was touring the western U.S with his brother and had already seen
the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, but said nothing on his trip compared with Old Faithful.
“It’s awesome,” said Nithyanand, who was so impressed he waited around 80 minutes to see it erupt again. “I’ve been seeing it in movies and on YouTube but seeing it live is amazing.”
The record floods reshaped the park’s rivers and canyons, wiped out numerous roads and left some areas famous for wildlife viewing inaccessible, possibly for months to come. It hit just as a summer tourist season that draws millions of visitors was ramping with the park celebrated its 150th anniversary — a year after it tallied a record 4.9 million visits.
Some of the premier attractions at America’s first national park were again on view, including Old Faithful, which shoots bursts of steaming water almost like clockwork more than a dozen times a day.
But the bears, wolves and bison that roam the wild Lamar Valley and the thermal features around Mammoth Hot Springs will remain out of reach. The wildlife-rich northern half of the park will be shuttered until at least early July, and key routes into the park remain severed near the Montana tourist towns of Gardiner, Red Lodge and Cooke City.
To keep visitor numbers down while repairs continue, park managers are using a system that only allows cars with even-numbered last digits on their license plates to enter on even days while vehicles with odd-numbered last numbers can come on odd days, with few exceptions.