Yellowstone names April 17 openings

Yellowstone is opening the easy-to-reach parts first and leaving the high, snowy parts for later. At 8 a.m. on Friday, April 17, the North Entrance at Gardiner and the West Entrance at West Yellowstone are scheduled to open, but only certain interior roads will go with them. (nps.gov) That first wave gives drivers a long usable slice of the park, not just the gate booths. The National Park Service says visitors will be able to drive West Entrance to Madison Junction, Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful, Norris to Canyon Village, and North Entrance to Chittenden Road. (nps.gov) Yellowstone does this every spring because most of its roads sit under winter snow for months. The park says the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Northeast Entrance is the only road typically open year-round to regular vehicles, while most other roads stay closed until plowing is finished. (nps.gov) The reason the map opens unevenly is elevation. Yellowstone Lake sits at 7,782 feet, while Mammoth Hot Springs is around 6,200 feet, and the park says winter conditions often persist in April with much heavier snowfall in the higher country. (nps.gov) Crews are still fighting through that higher-country snow right now. Cowboy State Daily reported on April 7 that a convoy of bulldozers, snowplows, and chainsaw crews had only recently reached the East Entrance Road near Sylvan Lake after months of clearing. (cowboystatedaily.com) That helps explain why the East Entrance is not in the April 17 batch. The park’s road schedule says the next major opening is planned for Friday, May 8, when the road from Canyon Junction to Lake and Lake to the East Entrance is scheduled to open, weather permitting. (yellowstone.co) The South Entrance is on a later clock for the same reason: it depends on snow clearing through the southern part of the park. The current 2026 schedule lists South Entrance to West Thumb, plus West Thumb to Old Faithful and Lake Village to West Thumb, for May 8 as well. (yellowstone.co) For travelers, April 17 means the classic early-season Yellowstone trade: fewer roads, but some of the park’s biggest draws. Yellowstone Public Radio says the first openings will give access to Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley, Norris Geyser Basin, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful, and the route out toward Silver Gate and Cooke City. (ypradio.org) It is still a spring opening, not a summer free-for-all. The National Park Service says the April 17 openings are weather permitting, and its current road alert still notes that spring plowing is underway and most park roads remain closed to wheeled vehicles until mid-April. (nps.gov 1) (nps.gov 2) So the picture is simple: north and west first, high passes later. In a park spread across 2.2 million acres with roads that climb into deep-snow country, Yellowstone’s spring season starts less like flipping a switch and more like unzipping a winter coat one section at a time. (nps.gov)