Yellowstone Winter 2015

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

Got the ok a couple days ago to plan a winter vacation to Yellowstone for Late January 2015 super excited

Flying from PDX to Bozeman on a late Thursday night, driving to Mammoth on Friday staying there a few days then snowcoaching it down to Old Faithful for a few more nights before returning to Mammoth for the last night before heading back to Bozeman.

Currently looking at the Lower Loop Snowmobile tour, the Steam and Star Night tour out of Old Faithful with a day hike on our own to Lone Star. And a all day Canyon Tour from Mammoth via Snowcoach, along with lots of driving along Lamar Valley while in Mammoth.

Any suggestions or tips? Currently just myself (29) wife (49) and daughter (10) are going, my parents may join if they cancel their trip to Florida that they are thinking about 2 months after Yellowstone, they are mid 50's.

[Deb1741]

My suggestion would be to do at least 3 nights at Old Faithful. My grandson and I did two nights and while it was good, one more night would have been ideal. Actually, four nights would be ideal, especially if you do a lot of activities in the area. The snow coach from Mammoth will not get there until late afternoon so basically that day is shot. The snow coach leaves around 12:30 to take you back to Mammoth so the last day you have just the morning to do things around Old Faithful. With just two nights lodging you only really have one full day. We did the Stars/Steam tour and enjoyed it. There was a blizzard the night we went so didn't see any stars but it was still cool.

The year before we did the Mammoth to Canyon snow coach tour. It is a long day but worth it to be able to see the falls during the winter. Are you planning on skiing or hiking to Lone Star on snowshoes? I believe it is a 9 mile round trip from the lodge (5 mile round trip from the trailhead). We've hiked it during the summer but didn't have time to ski or snowshoe it when we just did the two night stay. We were able to just do short (5 mile) ski and snowshoe trips right around the immediate Old Faithful basin.

The package deal is the way to go when you book the trip. It will include the snow coach to and from Mammoth, lodging, breakfast buffet each morning, and 10% off all purchases (including food, ski/snowshoe rental/extra tours) so it in the end it can save you money.

Also, take a cooler as one of your bags allowed. Fill it with all the snack and food items you can. We stayed in one of the cabins which are a little ways away from the lodge but it was not an inconvenience for us. In fact, we loved being able to out the front door, put our skis on and ski to the lodge. We had a great time and I would go back in a heartbeat if it wasn't for adding our week trips to Glacier each summer on to our couple of summer trips to Yellowstone.
Deb

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

Put together our plan over the weekend

Day 1 arrive in Mammoth around Noon
Day 2 @ Mammoth
Day 3 @ Mammoth
Day 4 Snowcoach to Old Faithful
Day 5 @ Old Faithful
Day 6 @ Old Faithful
Day 7 @ Old Faithful
Day 8 Snowcoach to Mammoth
Day 9 Drive back to Bozeman to Fly Home

We will be doing the Lower Loop Snowmobile Tour from Old Faithful on Day 6 so thats a full day. Otherwise we plan to do a lot of Xcountry skiing or snowshoing.

Can anyone tell me what ammenaties Mammoth has in the winter, Xanterras website has a couple basic pictures but thats about it.

[NDjason]

I know nothing, but it sounds awesome!

[orin]

The Mammoth visitor center is across the street from the Hotel. The park service headquarters is at Mammoth and the buildings are from the early Army days of the park. It is worth a walk to take a look at them. There is a restaurant associated with the hotel and some sort of swimming pool/hot tub building. There is a small store (used to be a Hamilton store) run separately from the Hotel that sells some food (limited and expensive) and souvenirs. There is a ski/snowshoe rental.

There is no store at Old Faithful so if you plan to eat or snack other than in the Snow Lodge restaurants you will need to bring it with you.

The days will be very short at that time of year so plan to spend most of the daylight hours out and about. And bring some reading material for the long evenings.

[Selkie]

Am following this thread with interest. I'd like to see Yellowstone in the winter, do some XC skiing.

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

The Mammoth visitor center is across the street from the Hotel. The park service headquarters is at Mammoth and the buildings are from the early Army days of the park. It is worth a walk to take a look at them. There is a restaurant associated with the hotel and some sort of swimming pool/hot tub building. There is a small store (used to be a Hamilton store) run separately from the Hotel that sells some food (limited and expensive) and souvenirs. There is a ski/snowshoe rental.

There is no store at Old Faithful so if you plan to eat or snack other than in the Snow Lodge restaurants you will need to bring it with you.

The days will be very short at that time of year so plan to spend most of the daylight hours out and about. And bring some reading material for the long evenings.

Thank you for that info, we will be flying in, but plan to either use a cooler as part of our checked luggage or at the very least pick up something in Bozeman before heading out. I have to check airline rules abotu the cooler thing (we wont be putting food in it till we get to Bozeman, but would pack it full of clothes or something.

My wife is going to call Xanterra and ask about the pool/hottub, told her it would be kind of silly to pack a swimsuit in with all the winter clothes lol, but if there is a hottub and its open after sunset then that gives us something else to do in the evenings. We also look forward to some family game time. We plan to be out of the room before sunrise (im a photographer so at a minimum I will be), and wont be returning till after sunset.

[Deb1741]

Put together our plan over the weekend

Day 1 arrive in Mammoth around Noon
Day 2 @ Mammoth
Day 3 @ Mammoth
Day 4 Snowcoach to Old Faithful
Day 5 @ Old Faithful
Day 6 @ Old Faithful
Day 7 @ Old Faithful
Day 8 Snowcoach to Mammoth
Day 9 Drive back to Bozeman to Fly Home

We will be doing the Lower Loop Snowmobile Tour from Old Faithful on Day 6 so thats a full day. Otherwise we plan to do a lot of Xcountry skiing or snowshoing.

Can anyone tell me what ammenaties Mammoth has in the winter, Xanterras website has a couple basic pictures but thats about it.

I am drooling!!!! That is a fantastic plan.
If you're lucky you will be able to be at Canyon when the winter keeper is working on getting snow off the roof of the Canyon Store (they do it a couple of times during the winter).


Snowshoeing up Pebble Creek Canyon (east of Lamar Valley) is a cool thing to do. It doesn't take too long to do.



A little ways up the canyon we saw this in the side of the cliffs. I knew about it ahead of time so I told my grandson (12 years old at the time) that I felt weird....like someone or something was watching us. I told him to turn around and this is what he saw.


I would love to ski or snowshoe Roosevelt to Tower Falls one of these years. We were going to do it last time but the weather turned nasty so we decided it wasn't worth it. Blacktail Plateau Drive would also be a great place to ski but unless you have two vehicles its hard to figure out the shuttle system. Though you could start from the west side (by Petrified Tree) and just go a ways and then return to your car. Snowshoeing or skiing up Slough Creek Campground road would be good too.
Deb

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

I will have to remember to pull up this page at home this evening to take a look at your photos. I was up early Saturday to get my call in at 8am Mountain Time when reservations opened. I started calling at 7:57 and was getting the office closed message, I watched the clock on my computer and cell phone turn to 8am (well 7am my time) and I hit dial, and still had a 25min hold lol. But ended up getting everything we wanted.

Friday Jan 9th we fly into Bozeman and rent a car, drive to Mammoth
Saturday we have the full day snowcoach from Mammoth to Canyon
Sunday staying in Mammoth no plans yet
Monday in Mammoth again no plans
Tuesday snowcoach to Old Faithful where we will stay in a Frontier Cabin, we also have the night tour this night
Wednesday OLF no plans
Thursday is our Lower Loop snowmobile tour from OLF 100miles in a day
Friday at OLF with no plans
Saturday we snowcoach back to Mammoth
Sunday drive back to Bozeman for a late afternoon flight home.

We just went out this weekend and did some snow shoeing around Mt. Hood and had a great time, we plan to rent some xcountry ski's before winter is over and try that out as well, then decide which will be our primary mode of transportation for next year and get a lot more practice in before the trip.

298 days and counting

O and the wife just planned a long weekend at Crater Lake in late June we are making our annual pass work for us this year.

[Tara]

Personally, I think no winter visit to Yellowstone is complete without going to Lamar Valley, but it doesn't look like you have time for that in your itinerary. Have a fabulous trip...Yellowstone is spectacular in the winter!

[Littlejohn Dsgn]

The entire first part of the trip is kind of based around visiting Lamar as much as we can. We ended up changing hotels and are now based in Gardiner the first half. Other then our one day trip to Canyon we have no other major plans which means lots of time in Lamar.