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In winter’s grip, Yellowstone becomes a different world
Hot and cold meet in stark contrast at Morning Glory Pool in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.
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Winter in Yellowstone National Park, for humans and other creatures, is a delicate balance between hot and cold. Most of those who venture into the park’s often frigid backcountry perched on cross-country skis are armed with an itinerary that will have them back in the warmth of indoor accommodations within a few hours.
Skiing in the park is typically a very solitary and relaxing experience: Out of the average three million who visit the park each year, only about 3 percent come during winter.
And that’s the thing, the reason to venture into Colter’s Hell during winter. You’ve seen Old Faithful so often, you roll your eyes when an out-of-town relative begs you to cruise through the park in summer. Your blood pressure rises merely at the thought of the traffic jams created by a lone bison near a park road. But you’ve never had Yellowstone to yourself, which is what it feels like in mid-January. It’s a retreat from the hectic world; from television, telephones, and the bumper-to-bumper e-mails of the information superhighway.
Which explains why I am three miles into a spectacular ten-mile cross-country ski in America’s first national park, when the sheer beauty of the scene causes me to pause. Lodgepole pines rise to dizzying heights, the breeze bending their tops and making a one-sided, wind-and-gravity-induced snowball fight erupt from above. With Spring Creek’s waters chattering below a bridge on the trail, the only other sound is that of my inhaling and exhaling. So, I hold my breath. I feel miniscule as I meditate on the immensity of my surroundings. I could stay still for an hour and just soak it all in—were it not for the fifteen-degree air temperature, which quickly persuades me to resume striding toward Lone Star Geyser.
A friend had driven our party of three on a wintry Thursday from Jackson over Teton Pass and through Teton Valley and Island Park, Idaho, before dropping us off in West Yellowstone, Montana. After venturing into Yellowstone National Park at the West Entrance the next morning in a snowcoach—actually a van on tank-like tracks—we planned to stay two nights at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and then return to Jackson via the South Entrance, where earlier we had shuttled a vehicle to await our arrival. Despite the somewhat complex logistics involved, this turned out to be a good way to do it: it avoided any backtracking, and each leg of the tour revealed its own unique charms.
Thursday afternoon we tromped through the streets of West Yellowstone, enjoying a tasty meal at the Running Bear Pancake House and watching snowmobilers buzz through town, all puffed up in super-insulated outfits that made them look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. The next morning we would hop aboard the snowcoach for the ride to Old Faithful and what would, the following day (a Saturday), turn out to be the best cross-country ski outing of my life.
