Yellowstone Gate (https://www.yellowstonegate.com/tag/craig-pass/)
Yellowstone National Park visitors will be able to travel between West Thumb Junction and Old Faithful when the last stretch of park road over Craig Pass opens for the season at 7 a.m. Thursday. Construction crews removed an almost 75-year-old bridge over Isa Lake on Craig Pass, replacing it with a new bridge and widening the road to handle the current volume of traffic. Continue Reading →
A two-year project to reconstruct a historic bridge in Yellowstone National Park will move forward after a planning review concluded last month that the work would have no significant environmental impact. Reconstruction of the Isa Lake bridge, which spans a section of the road connecting West Thumb and Old Faithful, will proceed when funding becomes available through the Federal Lands Highway Program, according to a statement released by the park's public affairs office. Continue Reading →
Isa Lake, which actually is more pond than lake, sits within Craig Pass, and is famous because it drains to two different oceans, but does so "backwards," according to the National Park Service. "At one time, it was probably the only lake on Earth that drained naturally backwards to two oceans, the east side draining to the Pacific and the west side to the Atlantic," states the 2012 edition of Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook, a Park Service reference guide. Continue Reading →
Each spring, a Yellowstone National Park crew of 20-25 workers take to the snowy roads of Yellowstone starting the first full week of March to tackle one of the most complex, costly and expansive jobs in the park. Road crews, including some seasonal workers hired just to help with plowing, work for up to three months removing snow and ice from more than 320 miles of road in Yellowstone. The operation burns as much as 1,300 gallons of diesel fuel each day and typically costs $1 million or more. Continue Reading →