For a wondrous winter vacation head to captivating, other-worldly Yellowstone National Park that exists in two states – Wyoming and Montana.
As fascinating as the geysers, steaming pools, and thundering falls are when you visit this remarkable National Park during the summer months, Yellowstone takes on a special enchantment in winter cold and snow. The steam shows up more brilliantly in the chilled air, falls are frozen in mid-flight, and many of the wildlife seem just a bit friskier.
- Yellowstone in Winterchasedekker / Animals Photos / CC BY-NC-SA
For example, the gray wolf is much more active during the winter months, and can be viewed through spotting scopes set up by biologists and volunteers. These scopes allow you to watch wolves from a 300-foot distance as they play, relax, and even soak up some winter sun.
Since the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone in 1995 when the first pairs arrived from Canada, the wolves have co-existed with the roaming bison in the Park, opting instead for the numerous elk. In recent years Yellowstone’s wolf population has been dwindling, due in part to an outbreak of parvo heartworm in the pups.
The bison, also commonly called American buffalo, are one of the main reasons Yellowstone National Park was created in the first place, when they almost became extinct in the 1800s. Â The Park protects these animals that have been free-ranging in this area since prehistoric times, and gives them a safe place to breed and raise young.
Bison must be respected in the National Parks as a dangerous animal , and you will want to view them cautiously. Although these animals are quiet herbavores, they will attack a human if provoked. While they seem slow and lumbering, they can easily outrun a human, having been clocked running up to 40mph.
Remarkably the wool of the bison is so thick that infa-red shows barely any heat being emitted from them at all. They don’t start to feel the cold until 40 degrees below zero (F).
Elk are plentiful in Yellowstone, and during the winter when they come down out of the hills to forage, they can be seen grazing around snow-covered picnic tables.
To see elk in great numbers, take a side excursion just an hour south of Yellowstone to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, near the Teton Mountains. Here is the National Elk Refuge which was created by the U.S. federal government as a wintering area, and which has the biggest concentration of elk in the country.
Take a tour of the National Elk Refuge with a fun sleigh ride, and get a close-up view of these animals that can reach 500 pounds and stand five feet at the shoulder.
Exploring Yellowstone National Park in the winter is actually quite easy. Many trails are open for cross-country skiing. Programs led by rangers include snowshoeing both to Mammoth Hot Springs, and through the Yellowstone Northern Range where much of the Park’s wildlife can be seen.
Even watching Old Faithful geyser can be even more interesting with a ranger talk that generally begins about 20 minutes before the geyser is predicted to blow.
With the backdrop of the billowing steam against a brilliant blue but cold winter sky, you’ll learn about Yellowstone’s fascinating geologic history of eons past, as well as its present, and how it all ties in with volcanoes and earthquakes.
There is quite literally no other place on earth that has such an irresistible draw as Yellowstone National Park in any season. And in the winter it is especially magical.
Alice Perkins is a timeshare travel blogger for RedWeek.com, the largest online market place for timeshare rentals, where vacationers can find luxury accommodations for less than the cost of a typical hotel room.
