In many ways, Yellowstone National Park is spending this summer recovering from last summer. While much of the park’s infrastructure devastated in the floods of June 2022 has been rapidly restored, other projects are slowly but surely reaching completion.
Xanterra Travel Collection is the resort management company that manages the hotels and lodges in Yellowstone National Park. In a June 9 update, the agency published the latest update on the status of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel – which has been closed since June 2022.
The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel closed after its wastewater system was seriously damaged in the historic flood event of June 2022. While the hotel is currently open for day use – mainly the hotel’s gift shop, coffee and beverage service, and lobby – the hotel has been closed to overnight guests for over a year while a temporary system was constructed.
The hotel was originally intended to reopen to overnight guests on April 28, 2023, but was delayed because of the ongoing work on the wastewater system. The day-use amenities open as scheduled on April 28.
Historically, the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is the only hotel in the park that stays open year-round.
Xanterra had been taking reservations for the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in anticipation of a June 16 opening. However, many guests had their Yellowstone overnight plans altered once again – and many more might have to accept the same disappointment.
“The National Park Service (NPS) has informed us that the Mammoth wastewater system is not yet operational, and we will not be able to open the Mammoth Hotel before July 1, 2023,” the newsletter reads. “Though we still hope to reopen the Mammoth Hotel on July 1 and do not want to cancel reservations prematurely, the opening date for Mammoth Hotel remains undetermined.”
Park County residents might share the same level of disappointment. While the Mammoth Hotel is physically closer to Gardiner, Montana, the entire Mammoth Hot Springs area lies within the boundaries of Park County. This means reservations at the hotel directly contribute to the region’s vitality through Park County’s 4% lodging tax collected from reservations at hotels and campgrounds in Mammoth, Fishing Bridge, Canyon, Norris, and Roosevelt.
Money collected from the 4% lodging tax is used exclusively to promote Park County tourism. In 2019, the Park County Travel Council collected over $2 million from the lodging tax, which included year-round reservations at Mammoth.
One positive development is the hotel’s restaurant – the Terrace Grill – is open and operating as of June 16.
Depending on your perspective, this leads to a related piece of good or bad news. Xanterra is eagerly promoting “Yellowstone’s Big News!” – an unusually high number of available hotel rooms in Summer 2023.
“It may be hard to believe, but there is currently availability of rooms and campsites in Yellowstone this summer. With a bit of searching, you can find rooms and campsites in June, July, and August of this year. This is a rare opportunity and advantageous for a spontaneous trip to the world’s first national park.”
A quick search on the Xanterra website shows several available reservations at the Old Faithful Inn, the Canyon Lodge, Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and Lake Lodge Cabins throughout all three months.
Meanwhile, there are other signs of slow but steady recovery in Yellowstone National Park. The Northeast Entrance Road is closing for two hours every other day so a new, permanent section of the road can be blasted into place. Meanwhile, the park’s May 2023 visitation wasn’t as high as May 2022 – the busiest May in the park’s history – but was close to the numbers recorded in May 2019, which was the last “normal” year for visitation before the COVID-19 pandemic and the June 2022 floods.
