![]() ![]() It hit just as a summer tourist season that draws millions of visitors was ramping up as the park celebrated its 150th anniversary a year after it tallied a record 4.9 million visits. The record floods reshaped the park’s rivers and canyons, wiped out numerous roads and left some areas famous for their wildlife viewing inaccessible, possibly for months to come. They diverted to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota for a few days and then to Wyoming’s Big Horn mountains before returning to Yellowstone as soon as the chance arose. They showed up at the park last week, only to get turned away as it was under evacuation. The bison sighting capped a successful morning in which they’d already seen two moose and numerous deer. Lonnie and Graham Macmillan of Vancouver, Canada, were among those at a so-called “bison jam” where a group of the burly animals crossed the road. “I’ve been seeing it in movies and on YouTube but seeing it live is amazing.” “It’s awesome,” said Nithyanand, who was so impressed he waited around 80 minutes to it erupt again. Nithyanand was touring the western U.S with his brother and had already seen the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, but said nothing on his trip compared with Old Faithful. Paul Nithyanand of Chennai, India, gathered around Old Faithful along with 1,500 people in the afternoon to see it erupt. The backups were gone by early afternoon, though, and visitation numbers were less than a normal summer day that draws about 10,000 vehicles, park officials said in a news release. The cost and scope of the damage is still being assessed, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said Wednesday.Įmpty roads and parking lots quickly grew busier by mid-morning as about 5,000 vehicles entered the park after getting through long lines that stretched for several miles (kilometers) at one gate in the early morning. Park managers raised the gates at three of Yellowstone’s five entrances for the first time since June 13, when 10,000 visitors were ordered out after rivers across northern Wyoming and southern Montana surged over their banks following a torrent of rainfall that accelerated the spring snowmelt. Throngs of tourists gleefully watched the legendary Old Faithful geyser shoot towering bursts of steaming water while others got stuck in “bison jams” on picturesque valley roads as visitors returned Wednesday for the partial reopening of Yellowstone National Park after destructive floods.
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