Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There (Yellowstone in Winter)

Welcome to my Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There Blog.

Today I’m taking a trip to a winter wonderland – an amazing visit to West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone National Park in winter is beyond description, it is just that beautiful. Everywhere you look is like a living postcard, but as our tour guide kept reminding us – we were actually driving into an active volcano.

Highlights:

Our tour vehicle. We were picked up by our tour guide, Mike, in a 1952 Bombardier V8 snow-coach – how uber-cool is that?! And we got lucky on the day we took the tour as our family of four were the only ones in his tour group.

Animals. Another uber-cool thing about a visit to Yellowstone is the animals, and whether or not you get to see any. Because these animals are going about doing their everyday wild things, not posing for photo-ops like animals in zoos. We saw bison, elk, a bald eagle and a hunting coyote, who tried to catch a duck floating past in a river only to epically fail. Yep, we were witness to one of natures little humiliations.

Old Faithful (and other geysers). New Zealand has some incredible geysers of its own—Rotorua is built around most of them—but geysers surrounded by pristine white snow are something we don’t usually see back home. Old Faithful certainly was faithful, and impressive.

Waterfalls. Yep, even in winter—because of the thermal activity the rivers don’t freeze. So I wasn’t really being mean laughing at the coyote. At least he jumped into warmish water.

Grizzly and Wolf Discovery center. I’m a wolf fan and a bear fan, so what better place to see both? While I’m not going into the debate of wild animals kept in zoo-like surroundings, I have to say I was impressed at the care that these animals received. The bears here likely would’ve been killed in the wild as they are all rescued ‘troublesome’ bears. Given that the biggest creature with teeth in New Zealand is the wild boar (and very few are seen unless you frequently disappear into the bush), seeing wolves and bears up close was a real treat for us. Oh, and the bear cubs? Cuteness overload times two.

Snow. We’re an easily amused family and gosh, did we LOVE the snow! Which leads too…

Sledding. Directed to a park in the centre of the small town of West Yellowstone by our tour guide, the four of us had a hilarious time sledding until the sun went down. Unfortunately I missed getting a photo of my husband as he rolled ass-over-teakettle down the slope backward—he sat on his sled at the tippy-top of the sled run and then lost his balance—but he got his revenge later when I got stuck in knee-deep fresh snow! (That's my daughter beside me laughing her butt off).

Would I go back to Yellowstone National Park? In a heartbeat! I’d love to see the park in all its glorious seasons because it truly is the most incredible, soul-filling place.

Tracey