A Bypass For Blue Lake, And Morrison's Back.

Trail Access Update

A Bypass For Blue Lake, And Morrison's Back.

Two pieces of backcountry news worth an update — one is a small win south of Big Timber, the other is a real one out of Wyoming.

Main Boulder Road: There's a Legal Bypass Now

The trailhead as of my recon trip — a barricade and a phone number in sharpie. Still no official Forest Service order posted here.

Since the last post, the Sweet Grass County Recreation Association did exactly what they said they'd do: they went and got the permit. This week they shared photos of a legally permitted low-water crossing, built 2.2 miles south of Box Canyon around the failed bridge — the same ask Lloyd Rue made to the Park County Commission back when this whole mess started.

The general idea — a low-water ford instead of a collapsed bridge. Not this exact crossing, but this is the terrain SGCRA is working with.

What this does and doesn't mean: it restores vehicle access around that one failed bridge, right now. It does not mean the whole road to Independence and Blue Lake is clear — nobody's confirmed the rest of the route past that point. And it changes nothing about the real timeline: Fleming Bridge, Hilary Bridge and the Box Canyon Bridge are still tracking toward 2026–2027 before this is actually fixed.

One of the bridges still standing on the route. For now.

Credit where it's due: SGCRA did the unglamorous work of pushing this through federal, state and county permitting themselves, instead of waiting on a county that already tried to walk away with the FEMA money. If you wheel this area, that's the org to thank — and to support.

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Morrison Jeep Trail Is Open

Wyoming State Trails cutting one of the 21 switchbacks back into the canyon wall. (USDA Forest Service / Shoshone National Forest)

Real progress out of Wyoming, and this one's a bigger deal than a bypass. Morrison Jeep Trail (NFSR 119/120, Clarks Fork Canyon, north of Cody) has been partially closed since flood damage wrecked it in 2022 — the same storms that tore up so much of this region. What's happening up there now isn't a workaround, it's an actual rebuild: the Shoshone National Forest, BLM and Wyoming State Trails coordinated a genuine multi-phase repair, funded through disaster relief money, to blast all 21 switchbacks back into shape and reroute the lower section entirely.

Old-timers on the Forest Service's own Facebook thread were the best part of following this one. Commenters who'd run the trail back in the '70s described three-point-turning their way up switchbacks that hadn't been touched since a volunteer crew widened them in 1983 — so this isn't the first time Morrison's needed hands-on work to stay drivable, just the biggest since. Most of the credit this time is going to one guy: Tim Martell, the Wyoming State Trails excavator operator the Forest Service kept calling out by name for threading a machine through terrain that tight without losing the edge of the road.

One of the finished switchbacks, post-repair. (USDA Forest Service / Shoshone National Forest)

• May 2026: work began on NFSR 119, with the road closed Monday–Thursday for construction and open Friday–Sunday to keep fishing access to the canyon alive
• June 22–28, 2026: a full closure, no exceptions, for a week of blasting
• July 2026: Forest Service reported 16 of 21 switchbacks done
• As of now: the Forest's own alert page reads "there are no closures on the Morrison Jeep Trail" — with a request to run it as a full loop instead of an out-and-back, given how much interest the reopening has drawn

That last part matters if you're planning a trip: this isn't a quiet reopening. Traffic is already up because everyone who's been watching the closure knows it's back, so the Forest is specifically asking people to loop it rather than turn around partway and re-drive the same switchbacks — do both directions of the canyon instead of doubling back on the tight stuff. If Morrison's been on your list since 2022, it's actually, fully back.

Drive fast. Take chances. Never lift.