Most Yellowstone roads and services are closing for the season on Monday morning, as NPS officials begin the transition to the 2018-2019 winter season.
Appropriately, many visitors to the West Entrance and Old Faithful were greeted by a dusting of snow, a harbinger of what’s to come in the next six or seven months. Higher altitude areas outside the Park, such as Cooke City, received plenty of new snow yesterday.
The West, South, and East Entrances and all roads (with one exception, of course: the road between the North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, through Mammoth Hot Springs to the park’s Northeast Entrance and the communities of Cooke City and Silver Gate, Montana) will close to vehicle travel at 8 a.m. Monday, November 5.
This marks the last weekend to make a Yellowstone run. Most services are closed for the season: the Old Faithful Visitor Center and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge Geyser Grill Fast Food/Bear Den Gift Shop are open for the weekend. (For a full list of services, see here.)
The next event in the Yellowstone National Park calendar will be the winter season. We’ll have a preview this coming week, but the thing to know is that construction at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel means some changes in how you will approach your winter planning.
Photo of Old Faithful taken this morning from webcam. You can learn more about Yellowstone webcams here.