Yellowstone in Winter - Part 1 - Entering Yellowstone

Wednesday, 24 January 2018

We took a one-week tour of Yellowstone National Park with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Yellowstone hosts over 4 million visitors each year, but the vast majority of them come in the warmer months (May through September). During the winter, several park roads are completely closed, but most of them are "groomed" for snow machine travel -- no regular vehicles allowed.

This is a special visit for us because we went to Yellowstone in December 1978/January 1979 on our honeymoon. A number of things have changed -- most notably, us(!), The lodging and food have vastly improved over the years. But perhaps the biggest change is in camera equipment. Last time we were here we had film cameras, and had to ration our photos carefully to fit our budget. Now with digital photography, it's "click, click, click" and just delete the mistakes and bad photos. Not to mention that you get instantaneous feedback on how well your photos are turning out.

The Paradise Valley lies between Livingston, Montana, and Yellowstone National Park.

I liked the disturbance in the clouds above the mountain.

A closer look at the clouds in the photo above that seem to reflect the underlying topography.

Although Yellowstone became the world's first national park in 1872, the official arch entrance wasn't built until 1903.

The inscriptions on the arch.

A view of the Absaroka Mountains as we enter Yellowstone.

We stayed the first night (and the fourth through seventh nights) at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. This is an overview of the hotel area from the top of the main terraces of the hot springs.

Next to the hotel is the Fort Yellowstone area. It was originally built as a military fort (the military ran the park for a number of years before the National Park Service was created), but it's now used for administrative offices and staff residences.