Welcome to winter in the world’s first national park.
Since most of Yellowstone’s 350 miles of roads are closed to cars from November through April, getting into the park, be it to Old Faithful, Norris Geyser Basin or Yellowstone Lake, is a bit more of an adventure come winter. The park itself isn’t closed of course – there are still entrance fees and lodges, hotels, restaurants, bars and gift shops are open – it’s just that the only ways to get inside are by ski, snowshoe, snowcoach or snowmobile.
Since the 2003-2004 winter season, it is required that guides accompany all snowmobilers into Yellowstone National Park. (Guides work for private companies based in and around Jackson and Cody and are not affiliated with the park other than the fact they have a permit to guide within it.) Guides and speed limits (most roads are 35 mph and some are 25 mph) don’t mean tedium: the park’s bison, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, geysers, waterfalls, gorges and hot pots protect against that. The new rules are great for novices too: even first timers can handle all of Yellowstone’s snowmobile roads. With the new rules, snowmobiling in the park is less about snowmobiling and more about the park.
The same season guides became mandatory, the park cut down on the number of sleds allowed in each day. It used to be that, on winter holiday weekends, upwards of 1,800 snowmobiles zoomed and zipped around the park. Nowadays, no more than 720 snowmobiles are allowed in on any given day. But the best part is this: with nearly 180 miles of groomed roads available to snowmobiles, that means only about four sleds per mile of road. Try to get that much room to yourself when jostling with summer’s 3-some million visitors. It’s just a regular winter day in the world’s first national park.