Winter in Yellowstone (Jan. 26')
- sunflowerstops
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
If you love Yellowstone National Park but never experienced it in the winter, then this is your sign that you must go. It can be a little intimidating in the wintertime because of all of the snow and the fact that only the northern section is open without a permit or special snow vehicle. But when Dave and I found Kate and Adam, KAR Safari, when we went to Anchorage, Alaska they were the answer and the push that we had been looking for.
We booked a 3 day/4-night photography tour with them for January. With a 6-person max to the group we always had personalized attention. We had never been on an organized photography tour before, and I knew that Dave was either going to really enjoy it or hate it.
Fearing that we might experience winter weather delays we decided to fly into Bozeman, MT the day before. Once we settled in, we took an Uber and visited 3 of the city's popular breweries: Mountains Walking Brewery & Pub (some of the best chicken wings ever), Bozeman Brewing Company, and Outlaw Brewing. Kate and Adam picked us up at our hotel the next morning along with the 4 other guests and we drove the 75 miles to the town of Gardiner. Gardiner is a tiny town at the North entrance of the park. It is home to the original Yellowstone entrance, and the main winter entrance for private vehicles. When we visited Yellowstone back in May we stayed in Gardiner. We arrived too early to check into our hotel, so Kate and Adam took us into the park for a "bonus day".
The bonus day ended up being one of the best. Once we made it to Lamar Valley, we were lucky to see a coyote feasting on a fresh kill. It was hard to tell but we thought it might have been the carcass of a small bison. We spent the following three days exploring the northern border of Yellowstone National Park and specifically Lamar Valley. We entered the park before the sun rose and left as it was setting.
It wasn't all about the wildlife, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. Especially right after it snowed. It looked like a winter wonderland. The average temperature was almost always below zero with the coldest being -11 degrees! We were hoping to see some wolves but only ended up spotting one. The coyotes ended up being our "spirit animal". We saw them everywhere and they were so fluffy unlike when we saw them in May.
Every day we would enter the park into Wyoming and take Grand Loop Rd to Tower Junction. Then we drove east on NE Entrance Rd, through Lamar Valley, back into Montana and out of the park to Silver Gate and then Cooke City, population:90. Cooke City is known as the "coolest small town in America" but more importantly it has heated flushing toilets, which was the reason for the stop.
This routine would take about 3-4 hours depending on how often we stop for pictures. After using the restroom and stretching our legs in Cooke City we would make our way back into the park. Around noon we would park our two SUVs on the side of the road and have lunch, outside, in the below zero weather. It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds.
We saw so many animals during our trip and got beautiful pictures to show for it. We saw pronghorn, bison, big horn sheep, deer, moose, elk, fox, coyote, ravens, wolf and even a skunk.
Because the snow was so deep and it covered the vegetation for the bison, they used a technique called "plowing" to get to their food. They would push their face through the snow until they got to the bottom. When they lifted their head up, they had what is called "clown face". A pretty accurate name for what they actually looked like.
On one of the slower days in the park, Kate and Adam took us on back to Gardiner to look for big horn sheep. We were so lucky to be able to see a large herd. Dave got some great shots, but it was extremely windy and absolutely freezing so it was difficult to stay out of the car for too long.
At the end of every day the 8 of us would meet up at for dinner and drinks. Only a handful of restaurants are open in Gardiner during the winter so our options were limited. Three out of the 4 nights we ate at the Yellowstone Mine Restaurant located just a stone's throw from our hotel, Ridgeline Hotel at Yellowstone. For our last night we dined at Wonderland Cafe & Lodge, a restaurant we went to on our last trip. (Tumbleweed Bookstore and Cafe was also a great spot for lunch!)
We had such a successful time on our photography "safari" with Kate and Adam that before we left to go home we booked their longer tour for next January. We had so many great pictures it is hard to narrow them down but here is a good variety. Click and scroll through the photos below.
Until our next trip!
Amazing. The pictures are beautiful.