Skiing the Park

This past weekend my beautiful wife took me down to the Park (Yellowstone, that is) for a couple days of cross-country skiing before my birthday. We stayed in the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel on Saturday night and had a great time!

We got a late start getting to the Park on Saturday, so we decided that for that day we would just ski the loop around the Upper Terrace and see the hot springs and other thermal features there. We would save our big ski for Sunday when we had a full day to enjoy.

The snow was great although it had not really dumped a whole lot recently. However, the skies were darkening and promising a little more. It even snowed on us a little as we skied.

That evening we had a delightful dinner of appetizers at the hotel lounge, complete with the requisite wine and an early birthday dram of some Laphroig single malt scotch. Mmmm.

In the morning we got up early for breakfast and then caught our snowcoach shuttle which would take us into the interior of the park near the Indian Creek campground on the Mammoth-Norris road. Our plan was to take the Sheepeater Trail to the Bunsen Peak trail, and then maybe around Bunsen Peak to see Osprey Falls and then back out to the road. This would be at least 8-10 miles of skiing through the Yellowstone backcountry!

Here I am riding in the Bombardier - check out that awesome ride!

Soon enough the driver left, leaving us alone at the trailhead as we started our adventure. And I mean ALL ALONE!

We leisurely made our way along the trail the 5 miles towards Bunsen Peak. The tracks next to Marilyn here are from a snowshoe hare. We saw alot of these, as well as coyote tracks (the two go together!).

Along the way we spied a lone elk realxing in the snow.

Eventually we popped out into another large meadow, where we had to ski past 3 bison that were laying in the snow. They looked tired, like they were ready for winter to be over. Soon, bison, soon!

They weren't too bothered by our presence, and we moved on towards the base of Bunsen Peak. As we did so the views became even more expansive. This is looking back the way we came, towards the Gallatin Range and Bighorn and Fawn Passes.

Eventually we reached the Bunsen Peak Trail junction. Time to check the map!

Since we were running a little short on time, we decided to forego Osprey Falls (we'll have to hike back there in the spring, as they were highly recommended to us by photographer Tom Murphy!) and ski back towards the road, still some 2 more miles. Along the way we were able to do some backcountry turns on the lower slopes of Bunsen Peak. The snow was great! In front of me here you can make out some more rabbit and coyote tracks in the snow...must have been a good chase!

When we reached the road, we decided to go ahead and ski back down to the Upper Terraces (another 3 miles or so) rather than wait for the snowcoach. It was mostly downhill so it was a nice run.


We stopped for this self portrait at the area known as the Golden Gate.

About that time it really started to snow, but it was nice. We made it back in good shape and made the drive home to Bozeman in time for yet another 40-point blowout loss in the City basketball league. On the up side, we found out that the playoffs are double elimination so there is still one more loss to come!