Visitors flocked to Yellowstone National Park after entrances gradually reopened during the pandemic, at the time setting visitation records. The elevated number of visitors not only continued, but gained steam — 2021 was the park’s busiest in history with an estimated 4.86 million recreation visits.

Local business owners like Orsted eyed the numbers and banked on another busy year.

“Local businesses had such a good year in 2021, so we made investments,” Orsted said.

Then, in June, Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding region saw historic flooding that damaged park infrastructure, washed out segments of both Yellowstone’s North Entrance Road and Northeast Entrance Road.

Visitors had to be evacuated and the park temporarily closed. The park quickly reopened the west, south and east entrances to the public and allowed traffic into portions of the park’s interior.

But the park couldn’t immediately reopen the north and northeast entrances, near Gardiner, Cooke City and Silver Gate. The gateway towns were cut off from the park, and the visitation trend businesses had been planning for flipped.

“I invested in building staff housing. I know of a guide company that bought more tour buses and land. And all of a sudden, they’re saddled with debt and no tourism,” Orsted said.

The flooding was followed by a massive bid to restore access to the northern portion of the park. But for several weeks, local business owners, gateway residents and tourists, weren’t sure what to expect.

“When we first saw the video of the road (damage) we thought, ‘we won’t be able to work for years,’” said Nathan Varley, co-owner of Yellowstone Wolf Tracker, a wildlife viewing outfitter.

Crews got to work quickly to repair the roadways and build a new route from Gardiner to Mammoth Hot Springs. But local businesses reliant on tourism faced an uncertain summer.

Workers fixed the Northeast Entrance Road before winter set in, and the route reopened to regular vehicle traffic in mid-October. A few weeks later, crews finished the improvements on Old Gardiner Road, which opened to the public on Oct. 30.

Six months later, most businesses have scraped by. They’re now eyeing what’s shaping up to be a “strong winter season” and hoping for a return to high visitation numbers next year.

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Historically, the park funnels millions of tourism dollars into its surrounding cities and counties.

In 2021, 4.86 million Yellowstone visitors spent over $630 million in gateway economies around the park, like West Yellowstone and Gardiner, according to a 2022 report from the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

It was the most ever spent by tourists, even surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

It’s too early to definitively determine the economic loss from the flooding, said Robin Hoover, the executive director of the Yellowstone Country Montana Tourism Region, a nonprofit promoting regional tourism that’s supported by the state tourism bureau. Survey work and data collection is still underway.

Yellowstone’s visitation numbers, which the park releases monthly, could be some indicator of economic losses. For October, the park saw a 36% decrease in visitation compared to October 2020.

However, it did represent a 36% increase from the number of visits recorded in October of 2019, which was the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, as of October, the park had hosted approximately 3,246,700 recreation visits, which is down 32% from the same time in 2021, according to park statistics.

Another early indicator of revenue loss is the state’s lodging facility use tax, or bed tax.

The 4% bed tax is collected from guests of hotels, bed and breakfasts, guest ranches, resorts, and campgrounds, and gives a glimpse of dollars spent in the gateway towns.

Between July and September, Gardiner saw a 92% reduction in bed tax dollars, compared to the same months in 2021. Bed tax income totaled $29,140 over the three months.

Park County, which also encompasses Cooke City, Silver Gate, and Livingston, was down 27% during the summer months compared to 2021.

Hoover said Gardiner, Cooke City, Silver Gate and their tourism-dependent economies saw the biggest loss of tourism due to flooding.

Even Red Lodge, which took more physical damage from flooding this spring than other towns, appeared to be recovering faster than Gardiner according to indications from the bed tax, Hoover said.

“Recovery never goes as quickly as the devastation part of things,” Hoover said. “There’s been steady progress, and we certainly look forward to spring and summer visitation.”

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On July 13, park officials opened up the under-construction road between Gardiner and Mammoth to commercial guides and outfitters.

Although access was restricted, guides could take visitors inside the park.

Varley, of Yellowstone Wolf Tracker, said that’s when things started looking up for his business.

“Things started to trickle in and we (guides) had some advantage of being the only way to get into the park in Gardiner,” Varley said. “August got better. September, for us, was almost back to normal even with that restricted access.”

Bookings are already coming in for next year, he said.

“Not everyone in town fared as well. Guide companies were lucky,” Varley said.

Hotels and restaurants had a tougher time.

Orsted, who owns both a cafe and small lodge, said tourism to Gardiner was erratic this summer, even with the town trying to rebrand itself as a destination rather than a gateway.

“We’ll have three or four days where sales are barely enough to cover daily operations, and then suddenly have a really busy day,” Orsted said.

For Jeremy Baker, owner of restaurant Grizzly Grille, business never really picked up. He estimates his business will be down about 75% this year.

He hopes for a busier winter, and said local support was encouraging.

“There was a lot of local Montanans that came through, the majority of my business was people from other towns stopping in and supporting for the community,” Baker said.

Hoover said the state tourism bureau, including the Yellowstone Tourism Region, and local partners like chambers of commerce, worked quickly to promote areas affected by the flooding and are continuing to do so.

With plenty of national media attention on the flooding, Hoover said it was difficult to “countermand that negative perception” that gateway communities were shut down because of flooding.

Hoover said they’ve worked hard to promote winter and started promoting other seasons to attract more tourists.

With plenty of snow already on the ground, Hoover said she anticipates the park will see a good winter season, which should trickle down to Gardiner — the only entrance that is open year-round to vehicle travel.

Orsted said her six-room lodge, which saw a high volume of cancellations throughout the summer, is already seeing more bookings for winter and into next year. Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel won’t be opening this year, and Hoover and Orsted both said they were optimistic that meant more people would stay overnight in Gardiner.

Richard Parks, of Parks Fly Shop, who transforms his fly shop into a cross-country ski and snowshoe rental during the winters, is looking to the colder months with hope, saying winter is “already being winter.”

“It’s not a huge season, but it’s enough cash flow to cover immediate expenses,” Parks said.

But like most Gardiner residents, Parks is optimistic about next year.

“With the road reopened, … next summer is looking like we’re back in business,” Parks said.

Juliana Sukut can be reached at 406-582-2630 or jsukut@dailychronicle.com