Winter Sports--The average snowfall in a Yellowstone winter is about 50 inches, creating a beautiful setting for sightseers and a wonderful resource for outdoor winter recreation. The steaming hot pools and geysers generate little islands of warmth and clear ground, attracting not just tourists but wildlife as well. Nearby trees are transformed into "snow ghosts" by frozen thermal vapors. Bison become frosted, shaggy beasts, easily spotted as they take advantage of the more accessible vegetation on the thawed ground. Yellowstone Lake's surface freezes to an average thickness of 3 feet, creating a vast ice sheet that sings and moans as the huge plates of ice shift. But the ice is thinner where hot springs come up on the lake bottom, and you'll see otters surfacing at the breaks in the ice. Waterfalls become astounding pieces of frozen sculpture. Snow-white trumpeter swans glide through geyser-fed streams under clear-blue skies of clean, crisp mountain air.
Only two of the park's hostelries, Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, provide accommodations from December through March. The only road that's open for cars is Mammoth Hot Springs-Cooke City Road. Most visitors these days come into Yellowstone in winter from the west or south by snowcoach or snowmobile.
For additional information on all of the following winter activities and accommodations, as well as snowcoach reservations, contact Xanterra Parks & Resorts (tel. 307/344-7311; www.travelyellowstone.com). There are also many activities, outfitters, and rental shops in the park's gateway towns.
The Yellowstone Association Institute (tel. 307/344-2294; www.yellowstoneassociation.org/institute) offers winter courses at various park locations. Past offerings have included 3-day classes devoted to wintertime photography in the park, cross-country skiing, and the ecology of wolf reintroduction.
