Yellowstone in Winter

In January 2019 I participated in a photography trip organized by professional photographer John Slonina. Unlike many winter trips to Yellowstone, this trip included three days of photographing the northern stretch of park from Gardiner to Soda Butte Creek at the far end of the Lamar Valley, and three days in a snow coach in the southern reaches of the park, down to Old Faithful area in the western half of the park and into Canyon and Hayden Valley down to Fishing Bridge. The trip is based out of the Best Western in Gardner, MT, just outside the north entrance to the park.

The primary focus of the group was wildlife and that’s where we concentrated our efforts; to find the iconic animals in the park. Our group had a very good trip, seeing and photographing everything on the list of mammals except for the hibernating species. We didn’t have a “three-dog-day” but did have a three dog week as we photographed coyote, wolf and red fox. Our driver, Mark Kundzins, was very knowledgeable of the park and had driven John’s tour group last year and worked well with him.

The snowfall in the park was very light everywhere. In the norther area of the park, the road was clear down to pavement in most places. in the southern areas there was snow cover on the roads but generally was not deep. We did have some cold temperatures, the coldest being -17º F one day. Our days were scheduled based on the availability of the snow coach so we had two days in the van, three days in the snow coach and the last day in the van.

I’ve organized my images in two galleries, the first for the northern areas where we traveled by van, and the second in which we traveled by snow coach. To see my Yellowstone in Winter images from 2011, look here.

Images from the northern road in Yellowstone NP

Images from the snow coach in the southern areas of Yellowstone NP