News

Despite a partial U.S. government shutdown, Yellowstone remains open during this holiday season, with concessionaires picking up the slack and funding some essential services for the time being.

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.

September 2018 Yellowstone visitation was up 13 percent over 2017, as warm weather and some compelling changes in the Park’s geyser fields potentially kept visitor levels high for the season.

In a win for conservation and Yellowstone tourism over mining, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced the withdrawal of 30,000 acres of federal lands in southwest Montana north of the Park from mining for 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen restored Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone-area grizzly bears, and in the process permanently ended planned trophy hunts in Idaho and Wyoming.

To say that the Yellowstone National Park geyser fields have been unusually active this summer is an understatement, and we have some new Geyser Hill thermal activity to report, including a rare eruption of Ear Spring hot pool.

While there are few outbreaks of Yellowstone forest fires in 2018, one fire on the western boundary of the Park — the Bacon Rind Fire — continues to expand.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen extended a temporary restraining order that blocks a Yellowstone-area grizzly trophy hunt in Idaho and Wyoming, as the legal debate continues over federal delisting of the bears from endangered status and turning management over to the states.

Yellowstone visitation in August 2018 was down some 11 percent when compared to August 2017, as hot and dry weather may have impacted the overall recreational numbers.

The call to withdraw resources from the Bacon Rind Fire on the western edge of Yellowstone may have been premature, as warm and dry weather leads to its expansion and an upgrade to the Yellowstone fire danger to Very High.