Yellowstone road closures and seasonal dates.

Every Yellowstone road on one timeline.

The chart and table below are the park's published 2026 schedule; the striped bar carries into March 2027. Five entrances, one Grand Loop, and a handful of high passes each have their own dates. Roads open at 8:00 a.m. on the first day, and once a road is open it is not gated at night: you can enter and leave 24 hours a day. No vehicle reservation is needed, only an entrance pass. The lower loop of the Grand Loop is complete on May 8, when Craig Pass opens. The upper loop, and the full figure eight, wait for Dunraven Pass on May 22. Snow can move any of them, so treat the schedule as the plan, not a promise.

The year-round road.

The northern corridor is the exception. NPS keeps the road from the North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, through Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower Junction to the Northeast Entrance at Cooke City open to regular vehicles all year. That is the road for Lamar Valley wildlife watching in winter. It is plowed, but it is a mountain road in winter: carry winter gear, check the Montana road report for US-89 and US-212 outside the park, and the NPS road page or its recorded road line, (307) 344-2117, for the park itself. NPS also points visitors to the Wyoming and Idaho road reports, and to Grand Teton road status, which every South Entrance arrival drives through first. Both entrances on this road are open, but from outside the park you can only enter at Gardiner in winter; the Cooke City end is a dead end because US-212 beyond it closes.

Cooke City is a dead end in winter. The Beartooth Highway beyond it closes in mid-October, and the nine miles of US-212 from Cooke City to Pilot Creek close to wheeled vehicles from early November to mid-May, so you drive back out the way you came.

2026 delays and construction.

Nothing here closes a road, but six NPS projects will slow you down in 2026. The one that matters most sits on the road that never closes. The Gardner River High Bridge, half a mile southeast of Mammoth Hot Springs, is down to a single lane with delays of up to 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, from April 13 through late October 2026. Five full nighttime closures, 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., also happen after September 7.

The rest: the Yellowstone River Bridge just east of Tower Junction is paving, with delays of up to 30 minutes through November, on the winter route to Lamar Valley. Chip sealing moves around the park with delays of up to 30 minutes through 2026, and leaves loose gravel behind. Bridge Bay expects up to 15 minutes from August 25 through November. The Firehole River Bridge, 1.5 miles south of Old Faithful, expects up to 15 minutes in September. The Madison River Bridge on the West Entrance road expects up to 15 minutes nightly, 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m., from August 17 through early September. NPS says all dates and delays can change without notice.

Winter: oversnow travel only.

Once the interior roads close to public vehicles in early November, they stay closed to cars until spring. From December 15, 2026 the interior opens to oversnow travel: guided snowcoaches and snowmobiles, plus a permit lottery for non-commercially guided snowmobile groups. Lottery applications run August 1 to 31 and permits are awarded in mid-September, so a winter trip planned in November has already missed it. NPS closes those routes in stages: Mammoth to Norris on March 7, 2027, the Norris and Canyon links on March 9, Canyon to Fishing Bridge on March 14, and the West, South, and East entrance routes on March 15. Per the park lodging operator, Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel stays open through the winter until March 8, 2027 (it closes only from early March to late April), and Old Faithful Snow Lodge runs December 16, 2026 to March 7, 2027. A short spring bicycling season usually starts by early April, once plowing allows; NPS sets no fixed date. The main stretch is Mammoth Hot Springs to the West Entrance, 49 miles, open to bikes before it opens to cars. Our Yellowstone in winter page covers the whole trip.

How crowds follow the openings.

Yellowstone's spring crowd follows the roads. April, with the North and Northeast entrances open all month and the West Entrance road from April 17, averages 8% of July's visits. May, when the East and South entrances and most of the loop open, jumps to 55%. June is 90%. If you want the roads you need open and the park still quiet, aim for the weeks right after the May openings that matter to your route, before June.

The same logic runs in reverse in fall. October averages a third of July's visits with every road still open until October 12 or 31. Read the October guide and the best time to visit Yellowstone page for the tradeoffs.

Big rigs and passes.

NPS sets a 75-foot maximum length for recreational vehicles on park roads. In 2026 there is a harder limit. While work continues on the Gardner River High Bridge, vehicles wider than 8 feet 6 inches, longer than 75 feet, or heavier than 80,000 pounds cannot cross it at all, from April 13 through late October. That bridge is half a mile southeast of Mammoth, on the only road open all year, so there is no season to wait for. Past that, our take: Dunraven Pass and the Beartooth Highway are where length is most likely to be a problem. Both are high, steep, and late to open. Our Yellowstone camping page lists each campground's RV limit, which is usually the tighter constraint.

Common questions.

Is Yellowstone open in April?

Partly. The North and Northeast entrance road is open all year, and in 2026 the West Entrance road to Madison, Old Faithful, and Norris opens April 17. The East Entrance opens May 1 and the South Entrance May 8. Read Yellowstone in April for what that means on the ground.

When do Yellowstone roads close for the winter?

Most roads close to regular vehicles on October 31, 2026. Dunraven Pass and the Beartooth Highway close earlier, on October 12. Early snow can close any high pass before those dates.

Can you drive through Yellowstone in winter?

Only the northern corridor from Gardiner to Cooke City. The groomed interior routes are open to snowcoaches and guided snowmobiles from December 15, 2026, closing between March 7 and March 15, 2027 by route. After that the roads are closed to public vehicles until the spring openings, with a short bicycling season on plowed roads first.

Is the Beartooth Highway open?

For 2026, NPS lists May 22 to October 12. The general rule is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to mid-October. Along with Dunraven Pass it is the last road to open and the first to close, because of its elevation.

Does this page show today's road status?

No. This page carries the published season schedule, last checked September 10, 2026. NPS runs four live channels: the road status map, the recorded road line on (307) 344-2117, road alerts by text (text 82190 to 888-777), and the park webcams, which show traffic at the North and West entrances. The text alerts are the only one that reaches you once you are already driving.

Does a government shutdown close Yellowstone's roads?

Not by itself. The current National Park Service contingency plan says park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible during a lapse in appropriations, while visitor services are cut back. The same plan says parks will not provide regular road or trail condition updates, so the live sources above can go quiet at exactly the moment you need them. None of the seasonal dates on this page change.

Where these facts come from

Road segments, opening and closing dates, the oversnow route dates, the 2026 construction delays and bridge restriction, opening hours, and the text alert and webcam channels come from the NPS Yellowstone park roads page; the shutdown answer from the Department of the Interior contingency plan; the non-commercial snowmobile program from the NPS snowmobiling page; the spring bicycling note from the NPS bicycling page. The road lines on the map are OpenStreetMap geometry between OSM junction and entrance nodes, routed by OSRM (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL); they show where each road runs, not its exact closure gates. The 75-foot RV limit comes from the NPS directions page. Winter lodge dates come from the operator's opening and closing dates page. Crowd numbers are five-year monthly means (2021 to 2025) of recreation visits from the NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package on NPS IRMA Stats. Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service.