Dear editor:

I produced myself to a public meeting in Gardiner, Montana, on Jan. 13, 2026 hosted by the National Park Service regarding the new route of the North Entrance Road inside Yellowstone Park. The existing road through Gardner Canyon was washed out in June 2022, thus the need for a new road connecting Mammoth and Gardiner.

The 6-mile Old Gardiner Road (OGR) — a historic one-way gravel road roughly paralleling the washed out highway — was hastily transformed to a paved two-way road to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. It opened to the public in October 2022. Despite expensive improvements, the public was told the new OGR would be “temporary,” as its longevity is questionable due to lack of proper base compaction and seismic activity.

At the meeting, Superintendent Cam Sholly stated the paved “temporary” OGR would become permanent, meaning a permanent expansion of development within the park, meaning loss of wildland.  

I asked Sholly if the now permanent “temporary” OGR will remain open to the public. He said yes. 

I asked Sholly the amount of wildland acreage lost to the OGR development. He did not know, and deferred to the Federal Highway Administration representative in attendance. That fellow did not know. None of the 15 overpaid, underworked surplus NPS staff in attendance, which included the presenter, the head of maintenance, the fish expert, and the NPS photographer, chimed in with an answer.

I await my answer. 

OGR development is disturbing for two reasons: One, maintenance cost of the unstable, permanent “temporary” Old Gardiner Road, which in time, will of course be deemed unsafe for public use eventually becoming administrative use only. Two, more park development.

In a Jan. 19, 2026 WyoFile story Sholly said, “But it (improved Old Gardiner Road) does not have the same type of engineering, it doesn’t have the same type of life cycle that you would see with a modern-day road.” Enter modern-day, perpetual “maintenance backlog.”

As the NPS is charged with preservation, OGR should have never been transformed much less made permanent. Yes, it would take years to build the new road requiring delays and pilot cars on OGR. Not converting OGR sounds extreme, but that’s the price of preservation and the NPS was not willing to subject themselves to such personal sacrifice.

Managers improved the existing OGR for their own benefit and convenience.  

Many hundreds of commuting park employees, park residents, employee dependents, vendors, deliveries, contractors, etc. make daily round-trips on OGR, typically with one person per vehicle. Some employee’s vehicles make two round trips per day for the socially essential, two-hour sit-down lunch in Gardiner. Contrast that usage with that of the visitor who primarily travels with multiple people in their relatively light vehicles.

Millions of visitors had nothing to do with the lost wildland, but we (they), as always, will catch that blame and for over-use. NPS’ inability to properly maintain the improved OGR due to lack of funding will land squarely on a “miserly” Congress.

Had OGR not been transformed, visitors passing through would have singularly experienced just another road construction delay, unlike the minimum twice daily frustration of employees purportedly working to protect the park.

The current crop of park managers work at destroying the park, as have generations before them.  

Having exterminated predators, stocked fish, shot elk, fed elk, starved elk, shipped elk, grown hay, shot buffalo, shipped buffalo, fed bears, transferred bears, shot bears, buried bears, sprayed DDT, shipped fish eggs, buzz around in helicopters, build a private ski hill, build buildings everywhere, housing, housing, housing, comes a collective NPS shoulder shrug … What’s a little 6-mile private driveway, Steve?

Steve Torrey

Cody