We typically focus our travels on new places but there are a few places that we repeat. We love Yellowstone in the winter and decided to make a return trip the first week of January. We split the trip between Snow Lodge which we have visited before and our first visit to West Yellowstone. The theme of the trip: cross country skiing, a lot of it!
A few facts about Yellowstone
On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. The world’s first national park was born
Yellowstone is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states (67 species). The big five of YNP are Wolves, Bison, Elk, Moose and Grizzly Bears.
It is the 8th largest national park at, 2,219,000 acres and is the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
Yellowstone ranks second for visitors per year with 3.8 million. Great Smoky Mountain NP is number 1 at 12.1 million. Only 100,000 visitors come in the winter and the vast majority of these are day trippers on snowmobiles out of West Yellowstone. Least visited is Gates of the Arctic with 11,000 people per year making the trip.
There are more than 10,000 hydrothermal features in Yellowstone. The four types of thermal features are geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles.
Yellowstone is home to more than 500 active geysers (more than half the world’s geysers).
The thermal features are fed by the super volcano that lies under a significant part of Yellowstone. The caldera is 30 by 45 miles and to put the power of previous eruptions into perspective here is a comparison of the volume of material ejected: 1st Yellowstone eruption: 600 cubic miles, 2nd eruption: 67 cubic miles, 3rd eruption: 240 cubic miles, Crater Lake: 18 cubic miles, Krakatau: 4.3 cubic miles, Mt, St. Helens: 0.1 cubic miles: YIKES.
There is only a 1 in 700,000 chance that the volcano will erupt during your visit, I’m feeling lucky.
Let the trip begin
DAY 1
I use to love flying, not anymore: masks, delays, cancellations, people carrying too much crap on the plane, etc, etc. The joy of flying is gone for me but it is a necessary evil since I am still working. We flew from Cleveland to Denver to Bozeman. Both flights were delayed and Denver was a disaster with planes waiting for gates to be available. One plane waited for 90 minutes. Long day of flying but we made it to Bozeman and then drove to Gardiner where we had a hotel room.
We got up early the next morning and drove to Mammoth Hot Springs for the snow coach ride to Snow Lodge near Old Faithful. It’s about a four hour trip and the driver was very knowledgeable since he worked at YNP for 41 years. The snow coaches are the only way to get into the park if you are spending the night.Roosevelt arch named for Theodore Roosevelt who attended the dedication in 1903. He did not return to see the completed arch.
Plaque on the arch shows this quote:
“For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.”
from the 1872 legislation that established Yellowstone National Park
The snow coaches are FORD vans converted for 4 wheel drive and and to handle these huge tires. The tires run on about 8-10 PSI but can run down to 1 PSI if needed.Back with the Castors, this is a little different than the house boat trip we took in the fall.Bison use their massive heads to move the snow away from the grass
Fumarole: a hole in a volcanic area that allows hot smoke and gases to escape thru the earth’s surface at a consistent rate. They are noisy.Rime Ice, the steam from geysers freezes on the trees
Gibbons Falls, guy standing next to me liked to hear himself talkBison jam, the bison will not move for the coaches behind them but will for the one’s coming toward them.Bison babies. Gestation is 9 months and typically only one baby is born at a time. They weigh 25-40 pounds. They are called ” red dogs” at birth due to their orange-red color. Yellowstone National Park is the only place in the U.S. where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times.Norris Geyser Basin: hottest, oldest, and most dynamic of Yellowstone’s thermal areasLeann, will have to see what she took.We checked into our rooms and then headed out for an afternoon of skiing. Ed and Leann on the trail.The boys
Punch BowlMore Rime IceWe were skiing and I just happened to look to my left and saw this guy. I had a Bison burger (farm raised) for dinner this night. Reminded me of our Iceland trip where Jenney said she wanted to see a Puffin and eat a Puffin, mission accomplished.
DAY 2: FAIRY FALLS
We took a snow coach that dropped us off in the parking lot 2 miles from the falls, we skied to the falls and then had to ski back to the lodge. This was a long day.
Fairy FallsCrossing the bridge by the parking lot where we started, we have a lot of skiing yet to doPutting your gloves on the ski poles keeps the snow out when you take a break.The Wandering Whytes
Old Faithful Inn was built from 1903 to 1904 and is considered the largest log structure in the world. It is closed in winter since the building is not heated, looks creepy to me.Ravioli for dinner, I was hungry and ate it all.
DAY 3: HIKE, SKI & TOUR OF WEST THUMB
We started the day with a hike around Old Faithful and the other thermal features in the area.This is the visitors center. Three weeks before we arrived, they thought the winter season was going to be a bust due to lack of snow. That changed pretty quickly.Leann and I skied a few of the trails near the lodge, the Castors went snow shoeingBack on the snow coach for a trip to West Thumb and Yellowstone LakeI would love to spend a few nights here.The wood burner kept the hut nice and toasty.Yellowstone Lake with the Absaroka Range in the backgroundKepler CascadesOld Faithful erupted while we were at Kepler Cascade.The driver was bragging for the first part of the trip that she never got stuck. We were almost back to the lodge when the van swerved right and headed for the edge of the road….stuck. She had to call a tow truck, we were only five minutes from the lodge so it arrived quickly and and we were back underway.Yellowstone Tow TruckBack underway and we turned right into the lodge access road. I thought she was going a little fast, turns out their was a snowmobile in the wrong lane. She swerved to avoid the snowmobile and got stuck again. Twice in 30 minutes, she was going to be hazed pretty hard about that.This one was deep. They helped us out of the van so they could tow it and we just walked the rest of the way
DAY 4: SHUTTLE TO MAMMOTH SPRINGS, DRIVE TO WEST YELLOWSTONE
Bobby Socks trees: dead lodgepole pines soak up the mineral-rich water of the thermal area. After the water evaporates, they appear to be wearing white ankle socks because of the minerals left behind.We left Mammoth, stopped at Livingston for groceries since we had a house the next few days and then headed to West Yellowstone. We debated which way to go since the roads were snow covered and decided to use 287 since 191 appeared more mountainous. The road sucked, I was white knuckling it most of the way. We were close to our destination and had a choice of staying on 287 or trying 87. We decided to try 87 since 287 looked like it was going to start climbing. Big Mistake, very quickly the road turned to solid ice and I mean like a frigging Zamboni had just gone over it. We all said hell no, I slowly got turned around. Back to 287 which was not good but I just drove like an old man and we finally made it to the house.This was my view for most of the drive.
REST OF THE TRIP: SKI, SKI, SKI
It was nice to have a house so we could have home cooked meals after a day of skiing.We skied so much that even my wife got tired of it, I have never heard those words before
To my downhill family members and friends, 3 day pass $30!
There was a nice warming hut that we hardly used. I have never seen exercise equipment in a warming hut before.Leann and the Castor’sThe next day we decided to do the Riverside Trail. The trail starts in West Yellowstone but goes into the parkTypical cross country ski activity adding and shedding layersThis section was basically snow shoeing with skies. No tracks and we were just plodding along.
We headed back tp Rendezvous for our last day of skiing and they groomed the trailsFirst time I have seen a biathlon range in person, ski and shoot? Sounds like fun to me.Last view of the mountains.
This was our second trip to Snow Lodge, we did the same thing on both trips. We will probably go back and do it for a third time. Back to the airport and both flights were delayed again but we made it home.
