The first snows of the season will be falling on Yellowstone National Park this week, which means it's not too early to think about a winter visit to this magical place. Options are not lacking for how to get there, either.
The one time I visited Yellowstone in winter, back in 2002, my arrival coincided not only with a slow start to winter, but a warm spell. Still, there was enough snow for snowshoeing to the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and for cross-country skiing the Howard Eaton Trail from Lone Star Geyser back to Old Faithful. Come sundown, a stillness settles over the park, one that summer can't match.
Crowds are far fewer than in summer, thanks to the snow-coated roads and the limited number of beds in the lodges at Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs. At its best, winter can bring heavy snows and temperatures 30 degrees and more below zero, temperatures so cold you can hear the ice groaning on Yellowstone Lake. Those bitterly cold winters can produce shields of ice from geyser spray, and coat bison with icy beards. The park seems more alive in winter than summer, actually, as the snow serves as a great monitor of what passed by in the night or day.
Currently, park managers are working on the latest iteration of winter-use rules for Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton National Park. The final rules for the next two winters are due by November 15, and the winter season is scheduled to open on December 15. Rest assured, you'll have a couple of options, at least, of how to visit Yellowstone.
In winter, a number of other Yellowstone roads are open only for snowcoach and snowmobile touring between December 15 and March 15, (weather and snow conditions permitting). The East Entrance will open December 22 and close March 1 for snowmobile and snowcoach travel. Travel over Sylvan Pass on the East Entrance Road will be subject to avalanche-related safety delays and closures.
Visitors wishing to visit the park on a snowmobile or in a snowcoach must either travel by commercial snowcoach or accompany a commercial guide on snowmobiles (private, unguided snowmobiles or snowcoaches are not allowed). Best Available Technology snowmobiles are required, and there is a daily limit on snowmobile and snowcoach entries. Off-road use of snowmobiles and snowcoaches is prohibited.
So how do you get into the park's interior in these conditions?
You can head to West Yellowstone, Montana, where there are a number of outfitters who will ferry you into Old Faithful, either via snowcoach or snowmobile. You can head to Mammoth Hot Springs, where you also can board a snowcoach or snowmobile to head down to Old Faithful, or you can join a guided snowmobile trip or snowcoach tour in from Jackson or Cody, Wyoming
For a complete list of National Park Service-approved outfitters, check out this site: http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/wintbusn.htm
One outfitter who heads into Yellowstone from the South Entrance is based at Togwotee Mountain Lodge, which is located not too far east of Moran Junction. While the Togowetee area draws herds of snowmobilers who play in the fluff that falls in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the lodge also offers snowmobile and snowcoach tours into Yellowstone from Jackson. All of Togwotee’s Yellowstone tours include an interpretive guide, transportation, photographic opportunities, and breakfast in Jackson, clothing, snowmobile, gas and oil, lunch in the park and transportation back.
You also can travel a bit more comfortable via Snowcoach Tours, which is scheduled to operate daily this coming winter utilizing vans equipped with tank-like tracks to maneuver the snowmobile trail into Old Faithful. Visitors can learn from the knowledgeable driver as they travel through the park.
Togwotee Snowmobile Adventures also offers three Yellowstone National Park Snowmobiling Tours:
· The Old Faithful Tour is a classic snowmobiling adventure that provides a one-on-one encounter with the finest beauty that nature has to offer. The tour includes pick-up at the lodge, a buffet breakfast, a hot grill lunch at the geyser and drop-off back at the lodge. Mileage: 90 miles round trip
· The Canyons Tour enters from the south entrance of Yellowstone and travels up to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone on the eastern roads of the park. This tour does not visit Old Faithful, but guests have the opportunity to explore the Canyons and Yellowstone River, travel to the south gate and enjoy a picnic lunch. Mileage: 125 miles round trip
· The Yellowstone Loop Tour enters from the south entrance of Yellowstone and travels up to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone on the eastern roads of the park. After a short stop at the Canyon, this more advanced tour continues on the lower loop of the park to Old Faithful. Mileage: 170 miles round trip
To learn more about Togwotee Mountain Lodge and the winter activities it offers, check out www.togwoteelodge.com, or call (866) 292-6720.
Comments
I just saw that the Sierra Club is giving away a trip to Yosemite. You can sign up on their website: http://www.sierraclub.org/
Many options? You list only two - be trapped in a tour bus or be herded as snowmobiling sheep.
Another option - albeit one few winter visitors will likely act on - is to cross-country ski through the park on the roads. Yes, this means one will need to winter camp (unless you can and are willing to ski the 31 miles from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful in one day to stay in the only winter lodging in the park interior). The advantage of this is you can stop when and where you want on your own schedule to look at things and not be trapped in a tour bus or herded like so many snowmobiling sheep.
Once upon a time, one could operate one's own motor vehicle in the park on one's own schedule in the winter as well as in the summer but, alas, no more. This egalitarian option has been shelved to pander to PC pundits, many of whom have little personal experience of Yellowstone in winter in any manner, self-reliant or otherwise. Lest I be written off by some as a whiny snowmobiler, I do not own and never have owned a snowmobile. I did, however, live and work in Yellowstone more-or-less year-round from early 1979 through early 1984. In my job as an engineering technician, I had occasional need to travel into the park in the winter on snowmobiles. One winter on a week off, I also skied from Mammoth Hot Springs via Old Faithful to the South Entrance via the roads. On that trip, the snowmobles were no more obnoxious to me as a skier than the cars and RVs were to me as a bicyclist in the summer and certainly less hazardous. Based on my personal experiences of that time, I do not hold much with the rationales of those whose efforts lead to the current ban on individuals traveling on their own in Yellowstone with motor vehicles.
Two options are not many options to those who are not able or willing to travel in winter without winter vehicles nor to those like myself who do not relish being herded as sheep.
The North Entrance road to the Northeast Entrance road is open to cars; also a fair number of cross country ski trails from there, and that doesn't require camping.
I agree with you, though, in terms of your argument that winter access in Yellowstone is not at all egalitarian, and though it gets brought up repeatedly on forums like this (by both proponents and opponents of snowmobiles), it's not taken particularly seriously in the overall discussion. That's unfortunate. I am not a proponent of snowmobiles (I hate them with something bordering on loathing), but I agree with the argument raised by many of the proponents that all the winter use alternatives favored by the larger environmental groups ultimately lead to access only for the wealthy (though the charge is often dripping with hypocrisy from the recreational industry advocates who hardly can be said to represent the lower class). Even so, that does seem woefully inconsistent, and without fixing that problem, I find myself forever ambivalent about the whole winter use question.
Now, bison ... and their lack of winter (or spring or summer or fall) options, that's another story ...
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
Can any reader explain whether snowcoaches will drop a passenger off at a suitable trailhead for snowshoeing or skiing? If you could do that, then catch a later snowcoach for the return trip, it would be a real advantage. I remember a snowshoe trip I made up Hurricane Hill in Olympic NP 50 years ago -- the great mountain view, and the quiet. (This was before snowmobiles in the parks.)
George,
At Yellowstone you have to ski shuttles to choose from:
From Mammoth, they run you south to the Indian Creek Trailhead.
From Old Faithful, they run to both Divide Trail and Fairy Falls.
You can find some details at this site: http://www.travelyellowstone.com/winter-activites-dates-rates-5563.html#... -- though pricing hasn't been set. Also, the times of departure from Old Faithful's Snow Lodge are off by 15 minutes. They should read 7:45 a.m., 8:45 a.m., etc.
If you are driving and come in the North Entrance, you can drive yourself along the north side of the park to many good ski and snowshoe access points. This roadway is kept plowed open for two-way traffic all winter to provide the only wheeled-vehicle-access to the small communities of Silver Gate and Cooke City, Montana. This is a priority for the NPS, in part because a small school bus travels this corridor every school day to Gardner where SG and CC children attend school. Chief Joseph Pass to Sunlight Basin and points east can not be kept plowed open due to constant drifting.
Visitors who are interested in cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing on their own schedule will probably find this the most attractive option other than staying at Old Faithful and day-skiing on their own out of there. Since the NPS seems bound and determined to inhibit winter access to the park and have even those small numbers collected in mobile tin cans or herded like sheep, the self-directed and self-reliant visitor is effectively denied access to a majority of the park that they could access on their own in their own vehicle during the main season on the same roads. As things stand, even capable experienced people need to pay through the nose for a babysitter or have the time to ski and winter camp to get into the park.
While the ski shuttles mentioned exist, they do not get you very far. They only go about 7 or 8 miles, perhaps to avoid competing with their more lucrative half-day tours which likely do not allow skiing. There are all-day ski tours to Canyon from Mammoth (Sat. only) and Old Faithful (Tues. & Fri. only). These are a step in the right direction and possibly could be used as a shuttle for a multi-day camping tour in the area. One hopes that they could expand this by having the existing ski shuttles do a single morning drop/evening pickup run to more distant locations, say to Norris from Mammoth and West Thumb from Old Faithful.
I lived and worked in Yellowstone (at Mammoth HS) from spring of 1979 through spring of 1984 and did a lot of nice skiing along the north-side road and out of Cooke City. Skiing along the groomed roads was not too bad, certainly better than bicycling on the same roads in the summer with its larger, more frequent and more heed-less traffic. In the early 80's, visitation was lighter during the week than on weekends but probably is similar now. Based on the 2008/2009 Wildlife Responses report http://www.nps.gov/yell/parkmgmt/upload/Winter%202008-2009%20Wildlife%20... there is a morning rush in and an evening rush out (page 10). Other than that, traffic can be considered fairly light and unobtrusive considering that you are ON THE ROAD. At least the wildlife think so. This on-going study again noted that over 90% of observed wildlife had no apparent response (75%) or only a look-and-resume response (18%) to motorized traffic throughout the day; interestingly, these numbers are NOT in the executive summary of the report but are instead semi-buried on page 9.
The vast majority of the traffic goes in and out through the West Entrance (59% of snowmobiles and 61% of snow coaches) and South Entrance (39% & 24% respectively, calculated from data on page 8). Given the nature of things, almost all of these people likely go to Old Faithful and relatively few do all of the lower loop (past Old Faithful, Lake, Canyon and Norris) as was the case when I worked there. The current park winter info is silent on whether the winter warming hut system is still in service as it was when I was there.
Yellowstone is a great place to visit in the wintertime, but you likely will need to either put up with package tourism or cowboy-up in a wintry way.
We will be in Cody Dec.17-21...will there be a way to travel to the east entrance of Yellowstone?
JoAnne,
If the snow gods are bountiful, the East Entrance will be open to oversnow vehicles, such as snowmobiles and snowcoaches. There should be a couple outfitters in Cody who run tours into the park.
Have a great trip!