Yellowstone Road Closures - Impact Old Faithful
 

If you're headed to Yellowstone after Labor Day - as we were - getting to Old Faithful just got harder. :( Two sections of Grand Loop Road are closing after Labor day for construction:

http://hikinginglacier.blogspot.com/...result-in.html

I find this absolutely enraging! They knew about this at least a year in advance but just now announced it? It will take 2 hours longer getting there from Jackson, getting back to Jackson, possibly getting anywhere from there to another area in Yellowstone, but they claim it should not be much of an inconvenience? I'm really angry as you can tell.

We will be there at the end of September. Wish I could change our plans, but plane tickets already bought. Not sure what we will do. Perhaps change our lodging choices if we can and if it makes sense.

WOW...I knew about the road closure between Norris and Mammoth but hadn't seen the one between Old Faithful and West Thumb....and I had checked because we had considered going there this Sept. Glad we decided against it!

Utahtea

This is one of the "cons" of going to Yellowstone in the fall. They postpone big construction like this (if they can) until after the bulk of tourists have gone. Fall is my favorite time there. Road construction--not so much. Unfortunately, the winter temps and snow plus the summer traffic=constant construction work. (not to mention roads getting melted by geysers!!)

The fact that this wasn't revealed until a few days ago when I'm sure they knew about it probably a year ago, is very annoying.

I came through from Gardiner/Mammoth to Madison Jct. on Friday afternoon. Going south the first construction was a bridge they were replacing near Sheepeater Cliff. South of there they had several patches dug up to replace culverts with sections of gravel road. The road from Norris to Mammoth is closed from 11PM to 7AM 5 nights a week. Daytime expect 20-30 minute delays.
The worst construction I encountered was US 20 between Idaho Falls and West Yellowstone.

I thought that maybe Route 20 would be a better way to get back to Jackson from Old Faithful Snow Lodge, rather than going back around the Loop road (East around the lake) and then South.

i asked the people at Xanterra about all of this and they said it would take 5 1/5 hours to get from Od Faithful area back to Jackson! Yikes!

I was in YNP late last month.

I printed out a road construction map for this year to make sure what was affected and what wasn't.

The map clearly showed the road between OF and West Thumb as being affected beginning in early Sept.

With lower crowd levels in September, maybe changing your itinerary so that you're at Canyon after OF will help some.

Meyer, The closure for Old Faithful to West Thumb did NOT make it to their website which is what most of us have to rely on. But lessoned learned for future trips....I'll CALL and check and not depend on the National Park official website.

Utahtea

For what it's worth, I have run into a similar situation with our upcoming Oregon trip. After changing our itinerary all around to accommodate the Newberry lava tubes hours, they are now closing it before we get there for some reconstruction. And every fall trip we've made to Yellowstone has run into some road closure.

Just try to keep in mind that they have a narrow window to do some essential work to preserve these treasures. It may take away some of the disappointment.

Myer, what map did you look at?

We live very far away from Yellowstone so this will most probably be our only trip there.

We were in Hawaii , Big Island, a number of years ago. Went to see the lava flowing into the ocean in the Southern part of the island. Well when we got there there was a hurricane warning and they wouldn't let anyone go anywhere near the lava/ocean. Very disappointed, but that was unpredictable mother nature, not the Parks Service.

Pack warm clothes!! Yellowstone is supposed to be getting its first snow in the next couple of days!!

kenav,
I just did a Google search for "Yellowstone Road Closure Map" and the following came up.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/roadclosures.htm

#2 on the map and the description above it is the road between OF and West Thumb.

I called before my trip just to make sure the dates on this page were correct and we weren't affected.

When I was there the road between Norris and Mammoth was closed on and off. Since we weren't going there it didn't affect us.

I can see where OF to West Thumb would be a big problem. That's an important route.

There's also a map for GTNP and there was a minor issue on the outside road. Didn't cause much of a problem.