The Wyoming Game and Fish Department plans to permanently close public access by vehicle to the Willwood area south of Powell.  The area will still be open to foot traffic.

Officials will install a gate across the road Thursday, thus limiting future visitors to walk-in access only and ending decades of easy access to the Shoshone River for hunting and fishing.

The department hopes the closure will put an end to “vandalism, illegal dumping and (the) unauthorized use” of the private property, according to a statement it released on Tuesday.

“Public access areas are private lands on which Game and Fish has acquired an easement for a specified purpose,” said Brad Sorensen, Cody Region Habitat and Access supervisor. “This particular easement is across three parcels of private property.” 

“When these access areas are misused, private property is being misused,” he added. 

Sorensen said it’s only a handful of people who ruin it for everyone else, and the department is seeing this kind of problem recently. 

“It’s not just there,” he said, adding that the Willwood access area has had problems with vandalism and dumping “for years and years and years.”

“Hopefully, this will discourage some of that. But I guess it remains to be seen,” Sorensen said.

Over the years, the department has hauled off garbage, pallets, discarded appliances, and even a slide-in truck camper that had been shot and burned, the department said in the statement. The day-use only area has also been a popular place for youth parties and is often littered with cans, fast food waste and used condoms.

In addition, signs continually need to be replaced because they are destroyed with firearms or graffiti, Sorensen said. He said the signs are increasingly hard to get and cost the department nearly $1,000 by the time they are made, shipped and installed.

Not everyone is happy with the announcement. 

Retirees who drive to the far end of the area for easy access to fishing or wildlife watching will have a harder time using the area. Others have commented as the news circulated. 

“Maybe a trail camera for a while instead of taking away the area?” asked Larry Griffith, a retiree from Casper, who responded to an online post.

Sonny Montoya thinks the measure goes too far. 

“[The] government uses a sledgehammer to fix problems,” he said.

Sorenson understands the frustration. 

“Unfortunately, the Game and Fish are the ones that get to be the bad guys,” he said. “If people would respect the land and clean up after themselves, life would be good and we wouldn’t have to do things like this.” 

He also pointed out that access on private property is harder for the department to arrange when landowners hear about what might happen to their land if they decide to share with the public. 

“Others might be pretty hesitant to go into an agreement with us,” he said.

Though slightly different from easements that open up land that are otherwise inaccessible, the department’s Access Yes program has currently secured more than 12,000 acres of walk-in areas from private landowners in Park County. In 2021, the program opened access to more than 2.6 million acres of land for hunting as well as 4,005 lake acres and 82 stream miles for fishing on otherwise inaccessible private, state and landlocked public lands, said Tara Hodges, Cody Region information and education specialist.