Idaho Mountain Express: Yellowstone Park winter season begins Saturday

Friday, December 14, 2012

Yellowstone Park winter season begins Saturday

Yellowstone National Park will open to the public for the winter season as scheduled on Saturday, Dec. 15.

Beginning Saturday at 7 a.m. Saturday, visitors will be able to travel to the park's interior roads on commercially guided snowmobiles or snow coaches from the North, West and South entrances.

Travel through the park's East entrance over Sylvan Pass is set to begin Dec. 22.

The road from the park's North entrance at Gardiner, Mt. through Mammoth Hot Springs and on to Cooke City, Mt., outside the park's Northeast entrance is open to wheeled vehicle travel all year.

At Old Faithful, the Geyser Grill, Bear Den Gift Shop, and the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center will open for the season on Dec. 15. The Old Faithful Snow Lodge and Cabins and the Obsidian Dining Room open on Dec. 18.

The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, dining room and gift shop open for the season on Thursday, Dec. 20.

The Yellowstone General Store, the medical clinic, campground, post office and the Albright Visitor Center at Mammoth Hot Springs are open all year, as are the 24-hour gasoline pumps at Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower Junction.

All communities around and on the way to Yellowstone are open year-round, with local businesses offering a wide range of winter recreation opportunities. Extensive information and assistance for planning a visit to Yellowstone during the winter is on the park's Web site at HYPERLINK http://www.nps.gov/yell http://www.nps.gov/yell.

Park staff members will continue to closely monitor road conditions and weather forecasts that can have an impact on roadways and guided oversnow travel operations.

Weather during the winter season is extremely unpredictable in Yellowstone and road closures or delays can occur with little or no warning. Visitors are reminded to come prepared by carrying personal emergency survival equipment in their vehicles and dressing appropriately for outside activities in extremely cold weather.

All the administrative steps have been completed in order for the 2012-13 winter season to open as scheduled on Saturday.

Winter Use in Yellowstone this season is being managed under an operating plan much in the same manner as has been permitted the last three winters. Under the rule, up to 318 commercially guided, Best Available Technology (BAT) snowmobiles and up to 78 commercially guided snowcoaches will be allowed into the park each day.

In early 2013, the National Park Service intends to issue a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and a proposed rule to guide long-term winter use in Yellowstone, which will take effect in time for the 2013-14 winter season.

comprar viagra
acheter viagra
buy viagra

About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged: