Yellowstone National Park Opens North And West Entrances For Early Season Visitors

Gardiner, Mont. — Yellowstone National Park opened its north and west entrances on Friday, April 17 for the spring and summer season, bringing early visitors into the park even with snow still on the ground. 

Some visitors arrived with a clear goal in mind.  

“The bison. We really want to see the bison up close,” said Stacey Kresge, a Yellowstone National Park visitor.  

Others say they plan to explore what they could as conditions allowed.  

“We’re gonna for sure see the animals. We just downloaded some sort of Yellowstone tour that follows us on audio GPS, so that’s hopefully gonna be awesome. We’re gonna see whatever the road will let us see, I’m not sure exactly what’s open,” said Kelly Butts, a Yellowstone National Park visitor. 

The park delayed reopening the north and west entrances by four hours because of significant winter weather in the area. 

The National Parks Service sent out a press release on Thursday, April 16th, informing visitors of this delay in opening the entrances. The original plan was for the north and west entrances to open at 8am on Friday, April 17th.  

Instead of opening the park at 8am on the 17th, visitors were allowed into the park around noon.  

A number of stops inside the park are accessible, but some roads are set to stay closed until May because of changing weather conditions. Readers can check the Yellowstone National Park website for park access information.  

Stops inside the park that are accessible from the north and west entrances include mammoth hot springs, old faithful, canyon, Lamar valley, and Norris hot springs.  

For some travelers, getting to the park early in the season still mattered despite the snow.  

“Yeah, so we absolutely did not expect snow. We did expect chilly, but snow threw us off. When we were flying in, we got a little nervous, it said one to two feet, and we are not used to that much snow so, but we do love that it’s not as busy as like touristy time, so that was kind of why we chose this time,” said Pamela Ruholl, a Yellowstone National Park visitor.  

The National Park Service says visitors with questions about park status or surrounding weather conditions can call (307)-344-7381 for more information.