A grizzly with cubs mauled two hikers near Old Faithful and closed trails for two months

An adult female grizzly bear traveling with cubs injured two hikers on the Mystic Falls Trail near Old Faithful on May 4, triggering a closure of trails, backcountry campsites and fishing water in the area that Yellowstone National Park did not fully lift until July 6, roughly two months later. The park’s own news releases, issued in stages as the investigation and monitoring progressed, lay out exactly what closed, what reopened when, and why staff eventually judged the area safe again.

The incident happened on a heavily used stretch of trail just northwest of the Old Faithful and Midway Geyser Basin area, a part of the park that draws some of Yellowstone’s heaviest foot traffic outside the boardwalks themselves.

What happened on the Mystic Falls Trail

The Mystic Falls Trail is a moderately strenuous 2.4-mile there-and-back route that begins near the Biscuit Basin boardwalk and climbs through mixed conifer forest to the 70-foot Mystic Falls, where the Little Firehole River drops off the Madison Plateau. According to Yellowstone’s initial release, two hikers sustained injuries from one or more bears on the afternoon of May 4 on that trail. National Park Service emergency personnel responded and transported two male hikers, ages 15 and 28, from the scene by helicopter. Investigators later determined the animal involved was an adult female grizzly with two or three cubs-of-the-year, meaning cubs born earlier that same spring. Park officials noted it was the first bear-related human injury recorded in Yellowstone in 2026, following the most recent prior injury in September 2025; the last fatal bear attack in the park occurred in 2015 near Lake Village.

The closure zone the park drew around the attack site

Yellowstone’s response was immediate and geographically broad. The park closed the area west of Grand Loop Road from the north end of Fountain Flat Drive to Black Sand Basin, along with the Fairy Falls Trail north of the Grand Prismatic Overlook, the Sentinel Meadows Trail, the Imperial Meadows Trail, the Fairy Creek Trail and the Summit Lake Trail. Backcountry campsites OG1 and OD1 through OD5 were shut down, and fishing was suspended along the Firehole River and its tributaries within the closed zone. The park kept the Midway Geyser Basin boardwalks, Black Sand Basin and the Grand Prismatic Overlook Trail open up to the overlook itself, along with sections of the Firehole River outside the restricted area, so visitors could still reach the geyser basin’s most popular viewpoints while the investigation continued.

A phased reopening as the investigation continued

The closures did not lift all at once. Yellowstone issued a first update on May 7, three days after the attack, confirming the closures remained fully in place while the investigation continued and adding that no visitors were known to be stranded inside the closed backcountry areas. On May 23, the park reopened several trail, backcountry campsite and fishing closures northwest of Old Faithful, while keeping a smaller set of temporary trail closures in effect. Yellowstone officials said at each stage that the incident remained under investigation and that visitors were required to follow all posted closure boundaries, since entering closed terrain put both hikers and any responding staff at risk. Throughout the roughly nine-week process, the park kept issuing dated, numbered updates rather than a single blanket announcement, giving hikers a way to check which specific trails, campsites or fishing stretches had reopened at any given point.

How bear managers decided the area was safe again

The final lift came in a July 6 news release, in which Yellowstone said its bear management staff had surveyed the Mystic Falls Trail and surrounding area and found no recent bear activity, including no fresh tracks, scat or feeding sites. Based on those observations, the park concluded that bear-related risk in the area had returned to a level consistent with other Yellowstone trails for that time of year, and lifted the last of the remaining trail, campsite and fishing restrictions tied to the May 4 incident. A separate, unrelated closure near Biscuit Basin, in place since a 2024 hydrothermal explosion there, remains in effect because of continued unpredictable hydrothermal activity and was not affected by the July 6 update.

What the park is still telling hikers in bear country

Even with the Mystic Falls closures lifted, Yellowstone’s standard grizzly guidance did not change: carry bear spray and know how to use it, stay at least 100 yards from any bear, watch for warning signs such as fresh tracks, scat or recently dug or torn-up ground, make noise while hiking, travel in groups of three or more, avoid hiking at dawn, dusk or after dark when grizzlies are most active, and never run if a bear is encountered. The park describes all of Yellowstone, from backcountry trails to the boardwalks and parking lots around Old Faithful, as grizzly and black bear country year-round. The park’s repeated emphasis on those basics across each of its May and July releases reflects how much of grizzly safety in Yellowstone comes down to avoiding a surprise encounter in the first place, rather than reacting once one has already happened.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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