Silvergate- The owner of several cabins in Silvergate is offering his rooms for whatever the customers want to pay.
Henry Finkbeiner has gotten some takers, and he has a lot more ideas to keep tourists coming to the Yellowstone gateway community that is shut off from the park for automobile traffic.
Yellowstone’s northeast entrance is about a mile from Silvergate, and just a few miles farther from Cooke City. But the northeast part of the park won’t be accessible to automobiles for a long time. The June floods destroyed the Lamar Valley road in several places in the northeast portion of the park. So, only hikers and bicyclists are allowed in the northeast entrance now.
One Cooke City motel operator, Chad Meador, said his business is down “by 90%.”
Finkbeiner owns cabins in Silvergate, next to the park, He says this is the time to be creative, so, he’s offering to rent his cabins to people for whatever they can pay.
“We’ve had so much abundance in our life that we can take this hit. And, so, to that point, we started a pay what you can special with the intention of if people can’t pay anything, that’s okay,” Finkbeiner said.
Finkbeiner said the idea is to get people to spend their money in other parts of the communities and get visitors used to a new way of spending their Yellowstone area vacation. He said he’s had some takers.
Finkbeiner said of one caller, “He said, 'I’m thinking about coming up now. How does $60 a night sound?’, And I said, ‘It’s whatever you want to pay.’”
Finkbeiner said you can see Big Horn sheep and mountain goats on the big slope behind his place.
“Yesterday we saw eight mountain goats and some babies…little puff balls," he said.
He warned that you won’t see as many animals in the towns as you can in the park, but the gateway towns are great base camps.
“What is outside is jaw-droppingly beautiful scenery,” Finkbeiner said.
If you want to make an offer, you can call the reservation desk at Silvergate Lodging, or call him directly at 406-223-3666. He also encourages group reservations.
