Yellowstone in Winter December 2017

Tuesday, December 26^th:

            We got an early 6:30am start this morning.  Overall, the drive was mostly uneventful, except for some snowy areas on the road.  The temperature continued to drop during our drive, dropping to -8 somewhere around Deer Lodge, Montana.  It eventually warmed up a bit when we arrived in Gardiner, Montana for the night.

Middle of Montana

Wednesday, December 27^th:

            We were only in the park for three minutes and we spotted a bighorn sheep, several elk, and a bald eagle.  We stopped in at the Mammoth visitors center and looked around.  We were talking to the lady in the gift shop about how nice it is to be in Yellowstone without all of the crowds.  She said winter is her favorite time in the park because there are no crowds.  We read that 98% of the tourists come to Yellowstone in the brief summer months. 

Slowest place in the park

           

           We drove to the top of the Mammoth hot springs terraces and cross-country skied on the upper terrace loop.  Except for the nice uphill climb for the first half (which the kids weren’t too fond of), the loop was a nice groomed trail around some of the thermal features.  

Becky and Jacob cross-country skiing around the upper Mammoth Terraces

When we got back to the car we switched out of our ski gear and took a walk around the upper terraces board walk.  By now the kids were starving, so we heated up a bunch of cup of noodles for lunch.

Upper Mammoth Terraces

Hot lunch

            

            After lunch we started our drive over to Cooke City.  The road from Mammoth to Cooke City is the only road that is open in the park during the winter.  It’s maintained, but is still covered with compact snow and ice.  There were tons of bison right along the road.  A few times they were right in the middle of the road.  

We stopped several times to watch the bison and coyotes.  We stopped at a pullout where a few people had spotting scopes out.  They had seen a few wolves early in the day, but they had left. 

We continued driving through the Lamar Valley and saw two moose in the distance.  Once we arrived in Cooke City it started to snow, and since it is the end of the road, we decided to turn around and head back.

Moose

Outside of Cooke City

On the way back we spotted a fresh coyote carcass, which was being pecked out by two magpies.  We made it back to Gardiner just around dusk.

Coyote Carcass

Thursday, December 28^th:

            We got an earlier start this morning and drove straight to the Lamar Valley with the hope of spotting some wolves.  It was pretty obvious where they were.  The pullout at Slough Creek was completely full of cars, plus a few of the guided tour buses.  After driving back and forth a few times, we finally found a place to park.  After a few minute walk, we found everyone else on the edge of a ridge with their spotting scopes and cameras.  About 500 yards out there was a fresh bison carcass that two wolves and lots of birds were eating.  About 700 yards out the rest of the pack was lying in the snow on a slope.  The people next to us were regulars that knew quite a bit about the pack.  They were very friendly and even lowered their scopes down so the kids could see (and they had some very nice scopes).  Even with our scope, you could get a good view of the wolves chewing on the carcass.  Our neighbor Ron lent us his 400 mm lens to use with our camera, so we were able to get some great animal shots.  Unfortunately, the wolves were so far out that even with the large lens we had to zoom in the pictures to see the wolves.  After watching the wolves for an hour, the kids were starting to get cold, so we hopped back in the car and continued driving through the Lamar Valley. 

View from the wolf spotting area

Spotting wolves

Matt using our neighbor Ron's lens

Wolf pack.  There are six in the picture.

Bison carcass and two wolves.

            We spotted three river otters that kept popping up on the ice, then diving back in the river.  A coyote took his time crossing the road in front of us.  And of course, there were bison all over the place.  The Lamar Valley is truly a great place to spot wildlife.  And since there were very few people in the park, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

River Otters

Coyote in the middle of the road

Along the road to the Lamar Valley

            After a quick lunch, we went cross country skiing up the Tower Falls road, since it is closed for the winter.  There were several bison right along the road at the beginning.  We only went about a mile and then turned around, since it was all slightly uphill. 

Notice the two bison in the distance behind the girls

            We drove back to Mammoth and looked around the lower terraces.  By this time it was snowing and the wind really started to kick up.  We decided to call it a day and went back to Gardiner.

Lower Mammoth terraces

Friday, December 29^th:

            We constantly checked the weather the night before and saw that a huge storm was barreling through the northwest and heading right in our direction.  We decided to get an early start and see how far we could drive.  The storm started kicking in about 15 miles from Gardiner.  The temperature dropped to about 3 degrees and the wind kicked up to 30-40 mph and it started dumping snow.  This created whiteout conditions and made for some fun driving.

Dumping snow, 3 degrees and 30-40 mph winds!

            The storm continued for the rest of the drive.  I-90 got really bad between Butte and Missoula.  At times it was hard to even see the road.  We almost got stuck in the parking area at a rest stop that hadn’t been plowed yet.  Luckily, we didn’t have to put chains on, but we came close as we went over Lookout Pass on the border of Montana and Idaho.

Where's the road?

            Throughout the day we drove through heavy snow, wind, rain, freezing rain, sleet, ice, and fog.  We finally made it back home after being on the road almost 15 hours (it normally takes about 11 hours).