Early Opening and Free Admission on Yellowstone’s First Day

There were some pleasant surprises ready to great Yellowstone’s first visitors through the East Gate.

As announced last week, the East and South Entrances to the park opened for the beginning of the amended summer season. The opening was planned for noon yesterday. But when the first eager people drove up to wait for the grand opening, they got in a bit earlier than anticipated. Yellowstone staff opened the East Gate a few hours early at 10 a.m. The figured everything was ready to go, so why wait?  And to top it off, admission to the park yesterday was free for all vehicles passing through. Certainly, a generous gift.

Despite these unexpected surprises, both the visitors and the staff showed how ready they were to begin the Yellowstone summer. New devices have been installed at each gate kiosk so staff can distribute maps and other essential information without any direct contact with visitors. Even within the first few hours, license plates from all over the country could be seen making their way into Yellowstone: Montana, South Dakota, California, Texas, Connecticut, Florida, even New Jersey. The park is only open for day visitation currently, so it logically makes sense to assume those people were already staying in the area waiting to begin the season with Cody and the other gateway communities.

These generous changes to Yellowstone’s first day of the season were unannounced and there’s no word on whether it will stretch any further into the week, so presumably tomorrow marks the begin of the new “business as usual” for Summer 2020 in Yellowstone National Park.