Will Yellowstone Open Early This Year?

With a lighter-than-usual snowpack this winter on the east side of Yellowstone, plenty of people in Cody are wondering: could Yellowstone open its gates ahead of schedule? The short answer is no.

The partial reason is actually rooted in years of work by the Cody Chamber of Commerce to make the park’s opening dates more predictable, not less.

A Road That Had to Be Dug Out by Hand

It wasn’t always this way. In Yellowstone’s early days, the park simply opened when the roads were clear, which sometimes meant waiting until mid or late June. In Cody, during the early days of the Cody Road to Yellowstone, that meant men from town grabbing shovels and heading up the North Fork to clear the way by hand.

This job became especially difficult by the terrain around the old Corkscrew Bridge. As plowing equipment improved, the work got easier, but the opening date remained unpredictable, left to the National Park Service to call year by year.

How Cody Fought for a Fixed Date

That uncertainty was a real problem for Cody and other gateway communities. Without a firmly set opening date, hotels, tour companies, and restaurants couldn’t reliably plan for the tourist season.

In the 1990s, the Cody Chamber of Commerce took the issue directly to the Park Service to work together to find a solution. A committee called the National Parks Committee was formed under the Chamber, with the a specific goal of locking in consistent opening dates to benefit the businesses in Cody.

Chamber representatives John Parsons, Bob Richard, and Bruce Jones met monthly during the summer season with Yellowstone’s Deputy Superintendent Steve Lobst and Xanterra’s Sales and Marketing Director Rick Hoeninghausen. After several years of meetings, they succeeded. After that, the committee continued to work on many other issues including road closures, snowmobiling and the reintroduction of wolves. They kept lines of communication open and addressed anything pertaining to the East Entrance. The committee fell by the wayside when members of the Chamber board lacked the ability to serve on it.

Why an Early Opening Isn’t Possible

So why can’t the Park Service simply move that date up in a low-snow year?

While we may have seen lower snow levels on the east side of Yellowstone, the snowpack in the park was at or above normal for many areas of the park. According to Yellowstone Superintendent, Cam Sholly, “It’s been one of the toughest plowing years, especially along the west corridor.” With the warm days this spring, the freeze/thawing cycle created up to eight inches of ice in some areas. The conditions saw them behind initially, but they are back on track with the set openings for each entrance.

But even if the snowpack were light throughout, the answer would still be no. Flexibility sounds appealing, but the infrastructure that makes a safe, functional visitor season possible simply can’t be put in place on short notice. The National Park Service and concessionaires (Xanterra – lodging, gift shops, and restaurants, Delaware North – General Stores, and the park’s gas stations) all need to be staffed.

More importantly, the infrastructure needs to be de-winterized including water and wastewater systems. Old Faithful Inn is completely shut down and buttoned up each winter. It takes staff and time to get it ready each summer. Add to that the other buildings in the park that also get winterized as well as campgrounds, it’s easy to see that this can’t be rushed.

The opening date isn’t just a number on a calendar. It’s the result of the previous years of negotiations and development of a system that, even in a light snow year, needs every one of those days to get ready. Today, the East Entrance opens the first Friday in May and closes October 31st, a window that gateway businesses can count on.

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