RV Life - January 2009

David and Kay Scott

By David and Kay Scott

Yellowstone, considered by many as the crown jewel of America’s national park system, is one of our country’s most popular vacation destinations, attracting 3 million visitors a year. But 95 percent of the visitors arrive during the spring, summer or fall, and miss the much more intimate experience they would find during the winter.

A winter visit to Yellowstone is like being in a different park. In some respects it is akin to being on a different planet. In addition to smaller crowds, you will find few vehicles (only a small portion of the park is open to private vehicles during winter) and an entirely different array of activities. Walk through the snow to Old Faithful Geyser during the early morning and you may be the only person to watch an eruption of the park’s best-known natural feature. A snow-covered Yellowstone is truly a wondrous and more private place.

The inability to drive into and around the park during winter creates logistical complications. Only the north entrance road that connects the park to Livingston, Montana, is open to private vehi-

cles during winter. Within the park, only the road that connects the north entrance to the northeast entrance and Cooke City is kept open. You can drive into Yellowstone from the north, but you can’t go anywhere other than the Mammoth area and the small town of Cooke City.

Other park access points from the south (Jackson, Wyoming) and west (West Yellowstone) are closed to private vehicles during winter. Highway 14 from Cody, Wyoming, is generally open (depending on snow and avalanche conditions) to the park but closed at the park’s eastern entrance. The popular Old Faithful area of Yellowstone can only be reached via snowcoach or snowmobile (or, by the hardy, with cross-country skis or snowshoes).