Visitors are returning to a changed landscape in Yellowstone National Park as it partially reopens following record floods that 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.
Park managers raised the gates Wednesday 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.
It’s unknown how many visitors will show up in the flooding’s immediate aftermath.