Winter beckons you to Yellowstone

There's a secret to visiting Yellowstone that's especially true in winter. Walk a few paces on any trail, or just stand still and listen—you'll find solitude in this celebrated, special place.

Picture a vast frozen landscape interrupted by copious billows of steam indicating active hydrothermal features — bubbling mud cauldrons, sulfur-scented steam vents, and violent geysers that know no respite even in the deepest cold.

Watch as fox and coyote pace and study unbroken expanses of snow, then leap high to pounce on small prey twitching through tunnels threaded below the surface. From inside the warmth and safety of a car or snowcoach, or from the seat of a snowmobile, encounter bison encrusted with frost, lumbering across the landscape.

See trumpeter swans swimming gracefully in waters kept ice-free by hydrothermal features. Listen for wind, and wolves.

While most Yellowstone hotels, lodges, and campgrounds are buttoned up in winter, the park stays plenty busy. Hotels, closed briefly between seasons, reopen in December at Mammoth Hot Springs at the north end of the park and at Old Faithful, where the Snow Lodge can be reached by snowmobile or snowcoach. Commercial guides provide snowmobile, snowcoach, and cross-country ski tours of the park.

For kids, a free booklet is tailored to winter activities. Park rangers offer talks, evening programs, and advice on current ski trail conditions. Browse the listings of all winter activities and available services, from warming huts to visitor centers.

From the historic Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone's North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana, the park maintains a drivable road during daylight hours south to Mammoth's Upper Terraces, and east through the Lamar Valley to the Northeast Entrance and Cooke City, Montana. You'll have to turn around and come back that same way, though, as a mountain pass outside the park remains closed to cars through winter.

Want to know the best way you can enjoy the scenery and help protect wildlife during your visit? Slow down. Unless posted slower, top speed anywhere within the park is 45 mph. Please respect wildlife; many are most vulnerable this time of year. Minimum wildlife distance regulations apply, but the underlying premise is simple — if any wild animal changes its behavior because of your presence, you are too close. Check out the park newspaper for additional tips, intriguing tidbits, and useful information.

Come experience the cold and quiet of Yellowstone in winter. For some, it's a favorite time of year.

source: National Park Service

Tickets issued for tourists walking on Old Faithful Geyser cone

An alert webcam viewer halfway across the country tipped off rangers in Yellowstone National Park this week when he saw members of a tour group walking on the Old Faithful geyser cone. When park rangers arrived they found about 30 people walking around the geyser cone and taking pictures.

"They're out there in the evening walking in this fragile area near a geyser that erupts every 90 minutes," a ranger said. "When you're putting out thousands of gallons of scalding hot water that can spew hundreds of feet into the air, people could have been seriously hurt."

Park rangers issued three citations for being off-trail in a thermal area. The $125 tickets were issued to the group leader, the bus driver, and one other person. Group members said they didn't see any signage indicating the dangers or the park's rules that visitors stay on the boardwalk, though signs are prominently posted throughout the area--and should be common sense to most people.

This wasn't the first time a webcam viewer had notified park rangers of visitors walking off the boardwalks and onto the cone of Old Faithful. In 2009, six visitors were spotted urinating in the geyser cone. They were convicted of various charges, fined up to $750, and banned from the park for two years.

Every year several visitors are burned by the park's thermal features because they didn't adhere to park rules. RVers should know better, but let this be a reminder that not only are such areas fragile and easily damaged, but thermal areas can be dangerous--even life-threatening--as well.

Cycling Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks

If you are physically fit, athletic, adventuresome, not put off by erratic weather, like shoulder season camping, and are a bicyclist, the shoulder seasons in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks are for you. During certain periods, the parks open the roads to just bicyclists--not motorized vehicles.

This is when you can quietly visit the parks, not motor noise, see wildlife up close (watch for grizzlies, though), see the Spring wildflowers popping up through the snow banks, stop wherever you want (not just at designated scenic viewpoints), and wander as slowly or as adrenaline pumping as you wish.


What you need to know before you go

Glacier National Park

The plowing begins on the Going-to-the-Sun Road the first week in April. Plows start at the bottom and work their way up to the pass, clearing the way for bikes as they go. The road opens for cars in late May or June. Camas Road is also open to bicycles, but it isn't plowed, so bikers might hit snowdrifts along the way.

From June 15 through Labor Day, the following sections of the Going-to-the-Sun Road are closed to bicycle use between 11a.m. and 4 p.m.:

From Apgar turnoff (at the south end of Lake McDonald) to Sprague Creek Campground
Eastbound from Logan Creek to Logan Pass
Because of ongoing road rehabilitation on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, portions of the roadbed might not be paved. Bicyclists should use caution riding on gravel portions of the road.

Best park rides

Going-to-the Sun Road — 32 miles from Apgar Village to the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (6,646 feet). The first half is fairly flat and follows Lake MacDonald's shore; then expect to climb.

Inside North Fork Road from Polebridge to Apgar Village — 28 miles one-way on a gravel road.

Camas Road from Apgar Village to Outside North Fork Road — 11 miles one-way with lovely views.

Call 406-888-7800 for more info.

Yellowstone National Park

From about mid-March (depending on the weather) until the third Tuesday in April, the road between the west entrance to Yellowstone and Mammoth Hot Springs is plowed and open to nonmotorized traffic.

Yellowstone National Park snow removal efforts might allow for a brief period of bicycle-only access into the park sometime in May from the east entrance to the east end of Sylvan Pass (six miles from the entrance) and the south entrance (to West Thumb Junction) depending on road conditions for these early spring activities. The road from Madison Junction to Old Faithful and from Norris Junction to Canyon won't open for spring activities during this time.


Best park rides

Upper Terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs to Norris Junction —about 18 miles one-way. The first three miles through the Golden Gate is a bit of a climb, but it gets easier and flatter after that.

West Yellowstone to Madison Junction — 14 miles one-way along the Madison River. Watch for bald eagles and bison.

Call 307-344-2109 or visit http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/springbike.htm

Earthquakes still shaking Yellowstone

Earthquakes continue to rumble in Yellowstone National Park. Over the past two weeks about 100 small earthquakes a day have scientists scratching their chins.

Though scientists say that the quakes are more a curiosity than a cause for alarm and are not an indication of a bigger quake to come. However, they are closely monitoring and analyzing the data from the quake zone, which is about ten miles northwest of the Old Faithful geyser in an isolated area not near any road or community.

From January 17 through Sunday, January 31, 1,608 earthquakes had been recorded. As earthquake clusters go, this current cluster is second to the 1985 cluster when 3,000 quakes were recorded over three months.

Since the Haiti earthquake, interest in earthquakes has peaked, says the U.S. Geological Survey, with visits to their Earthquake Hazards Program website increasing five times since the quake, to more than one million visits per day.

Yellowstone is rumbling again

The magma chamber that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park is what remains from an initial volcanic eruption of 2.1 million years ago that was 2,500 times more powerful than the Mt. St. Helens eruption, and may have been the largest, most violent volcanic eruption in the history of the earth.

Enough ash and volcanic debris--roughly 600 cubic miles of material--exploded from the eruptions to cover the entire western half of the United States with about a four-foot deep layer of ash.

Explosions of this magnitude "happen about every 600,000 years at Yellowstone," says Chuck Wicks of the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied the possibilities. "And it's been about 620,000 years since the last super explosive eruption there."

That's comforting.

Now the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory reports that Yellowstone is rumbling again. Since Sunday, there have been 901 measured earthquakes in the park. The largest has been of magnitude 3.8.

"The swarm earthquakes are likely the result of slip on pre-existing faults rather than underground movement of magma," reported the United States Geological Survey on Thursday. "Currently there is no indication of premonitory volcanic or hydrothermal activity."

Two of the strongest earthquakes were measured on Wednesday night with eight of the earthquakes measuring 3.0 or more. While the vast majority of the earthquakes have been too small to feel, people in and around the park have reported feeling a few of them. The earthquakes have centered near the northwest edge of the Yellowstone Caldera.

The USGS believes there is nothing to indicate any serious cause for concern. Earthquake swarms have been quite common in the area since the time of the last major eruption.

Maybe that's just the earth letting us know she's still pretty awesome. However, it's still OK to visit Yellowstone. No major eruptions are predicted, and the likelihood of an eruption in any given century is is minuscule, since such events are measured in tens of thousands or even millions of years apart.