04.17.08
Snow Removal Has Begun in Yellowstone
Heavy snow breaking plows in YellowstoneBy Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole, Wyo.Date: April 12, 2008
Yellowstone officials say heavy snow has resulted in the breakdown of two bulldozers as road crews attempt to remove snow from park roads before they open for spring.
The park has since rented two machines in an attempt to clear roads from Mammoth to the West Entrance and south to Old Faithful by opening day March 2.
Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said this winter stands out as the snowiest in recent memory. “This is the most significant winter in terms of snowfall in years,” he said. “It could be the most snowfall we’ve seen in seven to ten years. For a change we’ve had a normal winter.”
Though cumulative snowfall amounts park-wide weren’t available, Nash said that, during the month of March alone, the park’s South Entrance received 101 inches.
According to Nash, the snow is so deep in some places that the bulldozer operators have to push the snow off the roadway in layers to feed it to rotary plows that then blow it off the road surface.
The south and east areas of the park typically see the most snow, especially the road between the South Entrance and West Thumb, Dunraven Pass, the Beartooth Highway and Sylvan Pass. Even during poor snow years, snowbanks along Sylvan Pass can reach 30 feet high, Nash said.
Nash said he expects that the park’s East Entrance will open May 2 and the South Entrance on May 9. Dunraven Pass and the Beartooth Highway aren’t scheduled to open until Memorial Day.
Early in the article, I think they meant to say that the park opened May 2, not March 2. It would be a neat adventure someday to snowmobile into the park.
04.08.08
Well, I never considered that
I knew from our travels that parks like Glacier and Yellowstone occasionally have to close (or the roads in them have to) due to impassable snows. But I was startled to see today that Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is closed because “because winds are blowing sulfur dioxide from an eruption of ash and gas from Kilauea Volcano.” There’s more in the report here and on the Park website here (kudos to the park for including links to more in-depth scientific info in their report).
We don’t get too much park-closing sulfur dioxide on the east coast of the continental U.S.!
Here’s NASA’s read on the sulfur dioxide:
04.05.08
Dancing Bears in Glacier National Park
Remote video cameras in Glacier National Park are capturing bears marking trees. LiveScience did a funny treatment of the video, editing several captures together and cleverly adding music to make it entertaining.
Not surprisingly, we didn’t see anything like this when we visited the park, but that’s to be expected when you pretty much stick to the main road through the park–along with every other visitor–so there was probably no chance of seeing relatively shy animals like this.
The raw (boring) video footage from the USGS Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project can be seen here.
Note: The current projected opening date of the Going-To-The-Sun Road this year is June 13.
