We'd originally been scheduled to go on this trip in February of 2024. We had to cancel that trip due to unforeseen circumstances. So, we decided try again this year! This was our first wintertime visit to the park. The program we attended, Old Faithful Winter Expedition, was held February 12 - 16. We flew from Madison to Bozeman, MT on Monday, the 10th. We then traveled to Mammoth Hot Springs on Feb. 11th, via Zanterra’s winter shuttle service. We purposely arrived early in order to acclimate to Yellowstone’s high altitude.
Our expedition group included 10 participants plus a naturalist guide and a snow coach driver.
Winter is a great time to see Yellowstone. Only two of the park lodges are open during winter and we stayed in both of them. While the lodges were full, there were FAR fewer visitors than we've seen on any of our previous trips. Most of the roads are closed to private vehicles in the winter. Travel is only by snow coach or snow machine (snowmobiles as we call them in Wisconsin).
I took hundreds of photos on this trip. I'm posting just a few of them here. Usually we'd drive to Yellowstone, but this was a winter trip, so we traveled via Delta Airlines. The first photo shows the Bozeman/Yellowstone Airport. The setting is very pretty. Other photos show scenery near, or in, Yellowstone. The last photo (which doesn't want to be centered) features my yarn haul from "STIX" in Bozeman. I bought the locally produced yarn on the last full day of our trip. I then had it shipped home to Wisconsin.
