Tunnels in Shoshone Canyon
This is the long tunnel, 2.8-mile (4.5 km) Shoshone Canyon Tunnel started in 1937.
TravelWyoming:The Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway, U.S. 14/16/20, follows the North Fork of the Shoshone River through scenic Wapiti Valley to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The 27 miles of paved Scenic Byway start about 25 miles west of Cody at the Shoshone National Forest border. Normal driving time from the forest boundary to the Park is approximately 45 minutes. The byway is open to traffic year round, but the East Entrance into Yellowstone closes the first Monday of November.
The north side of the canyon is known as Rattlesnake Mountain. Cedar Mountain is on the south side. These mountains form one geologic structure, a faulted anticline (see figure below), which was generated during the Laramide mountain-building episode. The Laramide reached this area about 70 million years ago. It produced the basins and mountains we see today.
Geologists debated the nature of these structures for decades. There were two main interpretations of the forces that produced these structures. One camp thought vertical forces on the basement caused these structures, while the alternate theory said they were produced by horizontal compression. What is curious is that both camps used the structure seen in Shoshone Canyon as evidence to support their respective interpretation. By the mid to late 1970s, seismic and well data showed that the “compressionalists” were correct.
1205a
Tunnels in Shoshone Canyon
This is the long tunnel, 2.8-mile (4.5 km) Shoshone Canyon Tunnel started in 1937.
TravelWyoming:The Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway, U.S. 14/16/20, follows the North Fork of the Shoshone River through scenic Wapiti Valley to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The 27 miles of paved Scenic Byway start about 25 miles west of Cody at the Shoshone National Forest border. Normal driving time from the forest boundary to the Park is approximately 45 minutes. The byway is open to traffic year round, but the East Entrance into Yellowstone closes the first Monday of November.
The north side of the canyon is known as Rattlesnake Mountain. Cedar Mountain is on the south side. These mountains form one geologic structure, a faulted anticline (see figure below), which was generated during the Laramide mountain-building episode. The Laramide reached this area about 70 million years ago. It produced the basins and mountains we see today.
Geologists debated the nature of these structures for decades. There were two main interpretations of the forces that produced these structures. One camp thought vertical forces on the basement caused these structures, while the alternate theory said they were produced by horizontal compression. What is curious is that both camps used the structure seen in Shoshone Canyon as evidence to support their respective interpretation. By the mid to late 1970s, seismic and well data showed that the “compressionalists” were correct.
1205a