The Park, as is well known, is a very extensive tract of country, and its various points of interest are widely separated from each other. The question of ways and means for getting comfortably through it is an all-important one. If the roads are bad, the hotels ill-kept, or the transportation uncomfortable, no amount of grandeur of natural scenery can compensate for these defects. In making a tour of the Park, the visitor travels not less than 150 miles, sometimes considerably more, and remains in the Park about one week. He is thus quite at the mercy of those who have the management and control of those matters which form the subject of this chapter.
The road system of the Park, when completed, will comprise a belt line, connecting the principal centers of interest; approaches, by which access may be had to the Park from different directions; side roads, leading from the main route to isolated points of interest; and trails, by which pack outfits can reach desired points to which regular roads will never be built.
The belt line includes Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris Geyser Basin, Lower Geyser Basin, Upper Geyser Basin, the Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Cañon, and Junction Valley. A cross-road passes from Norris to the Grand Cañon.
The approaches are not all yet selected, but in time there will be at least one on each side of the Park.
Trails are important adjuncts of the Park road system. They were long ago selected and opened up, and they are of great importance in patroling the Park. They are also much used by those tourists who remain for a considerable time.
The mileage of the completed road system will be about as follows:
| Belt line | 163 | miles. |
| Approaches | 105 | " |
| Side roads | 22 | " |
| Total mileage of Park system, exclusive of trails | 290 | " |
In regard to construction, it is hardly necessary to say that nothing but the best macadamized roads should be built. The inherent difficulties of the work are great. The soil in many places is of the most wretched character. The country is exceedingly rough. The streams are almost without number. The snow lies on some of the roads until the middle of June. The mud in the wet season is bad, and the dust of the dry season is worse. The soft volcanic rocks, which so generally prevail, make poor road metal. But all these difficulties can be overcome, if Congress will but provide for a systematic completion of the project. At present, the annual allowance is too small to promise any thing like good work, and it will be many years before the hopes of the government engineers in the matter will be realized.
The work itself is as attractive as ever falls to the lot of the road engineer, and it is doubtful if another opportunity exists to develop a road system which, if properly done, will reflect so much credit upon the government building it. It is used by visitors from all lands. It passes through every variety of scenery. It presents every known problem of road engineering. In short, it combines all the elements to make it, when complete, one of the noted highways of the world.