MOOSE, Wyo. — Grand Teton National Park will host a public meeting next month about Moose-Wilson construction and visitor impact.
Park staff is weighing how to allow the greatest amount of visitor impact with the lowest additional cost, construction duration and public safety.
The meeting will be held virtually on April 14 from 5:30–6:30 p.m. The link will be available here.
The goal of the project is to provide a better driving, parking, and hiking experience for visitors, the park said. All work will preserve the rustic character of the corridor and provide high-quality visitor opportunities including wildlife and scenery viewing.
Work will be completed in phases, with the first phase implemented in 2022-2023, the second phase in 2024-2025, and additional phases designed and implemented in the future.
- Phase 1 work will include paving the 1.4-mile rough, unpaved section of the road, improvements with the Granite Canyon Entrance including an additional entrance lane to ease backups, improvements at the Granite Canyon Trailhead, including two vault toilets, bench seating, additional parking, improved traffic flow, and decreased roadside parking, improvements with the Poker Flats horse trailer parking area, Kaufmann Creek bridge construction, improved pullouts for vehicles along the road, and new visitor information signage.
- The majority of the funding for Phase 1 work is provided by the Great American Outdoors Act, the single largest investment in public lands in U.S. history. The landmark legislation established a new National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) to address the maintenance backlog on public lands.
- Phase 2 is anticipated to begin in 2024 and includes repair to the Death Canyon access road, improvements of the Death Canyon trailhead parking, repair of the Death Canyon Junction trailhead parking area, re-alignment of the north section of the roadway, improvements to the new intersection, and final landscape/reclamation efforts of the former roadway.
The park considered other construction projects in the area when planning work on the Moose-Wilson Road. The park will continue coordination with Wyoming Department of Transportation, Teton County, and Jackson Hole Airport to minimize overall visitor impacts.
The project is part of the Moose-Wilson Corridor Comprehensive Management Plan finalized in 2016 after an extensive three-year public engagement process and environmental impact analysis.
The Federal Highways Administration is overseeing the project in partnership with the National Park Service.
The National Park Service reminds visitors to plan ahead especially during the busy summer months. In addition to construction projects this summer in Jackson Hole, there will be three major road improvement projects in Yellowstone National Park in 2022: Lewis River Bridge, Old Faithful to West Thumb, and Yellowstone River Bridge. All three projects will cause major delays. Two of these projects will have overnight closures for certain periods of time.
