Obamas in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon: Expect traffic delays and some temporary closures

If you haven’t heard, President Obama and the first family will be heading West to take in, among other stops, Yellowstone National Park on Saturday and Grand Canyon National Park on Sunday. You can’t blame the man for wanting to take advantage of a good deal every now and again: Aug. 15-16 is the last of three summer weekends when free entry has been offered to these and other U.S. national parks.

Of course, this isn’t really a vacation for the president. Besides town hall meetings in Montana and Colorado, he and his family will be visiting the parks “partly to highlight our national park system, to highlight the weekend, where we hope millions of Americans will enjoy the national park system,” according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in a recent press briefing.

But will the Obamas’ seemingly well-intentioned travels create a headache for everybody else visiting the two popular tourist destinations this weekend?

At Yellowstone National Park, Al Nash, chief of public affairs, said, “There certainly could be some temporary impacts during the presidential visit….But our goal is to ensure that the first family has a great visit and to minimize any impact their visit may have on others traveling to the park this weekend.”

Grand Canyon National Park staff have been advising visitors that they can expect some traffic delays and temporary closures. Delays on the road “could be a few minutes or up to an hour,” while closures within the park “could last for a couple hours,” said Public Affairs Officer Maureen Oltrogge.

Unsurprisingly, she could not give me specifics regarding timing or locations on the president’s itinerary. This was out of respect for the family’s privacy and for security reasons, she said.

And don’t bother stopping into a park office first thing in the morning to dig for details. You’ll find out about a closure only when you go to an affected area and try to access it, said David Eaker, a National Park Service public information officer.

The bottom line: If you’re planning a trip to either park this weekend, be flexible, patient and ready for some surprises. Along with geysers and canyons in these national treasures, as well as possible delays of one sort or another, you may just get a glimpse of our almost-vacationing commander-in-chief (or his security entourage).

- Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Photo: North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, Oct. 26, 2007. Credit: Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 14, 2009 at 7:34 am by Susan Derby and is filed under Arizona, Colorado, Family & Kids, Montana, National Parks, News, Tips & Advice, Rocky Mountain States, Wyoming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.