Our Recent Trip To Yellowstone National Park

As you might have heard, Nick and I spent 4 full days at the Yellowstone National Park over New Years. It was a great trip with lots of snow, some excellent x-country skiing and many wild life sightings. Did I mention snow? We even saw a pack of wolves!

During the winter only the North Entrance into the park is open to cars, and travel is only permitted along the road between Gardner, MT and Cook City, MT, which runs through Lamar Valley. Travelers need to ride snow coaches or snowmobiles in order to get anywhere else in the park. During the winter only 2 hotels are open, Mammoth Hot Sprints Hotel and Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and luckily we got to stay in both.

Photos
A selection of the favorite photos I took
A selection of the favorite photos Nick took
All the digital photos Nick and I snapped during our journey

Our Trip Summary
(Click on the links for more details on each of our "adventures")
We flew into Bozeman, MT, on December 31st, and took a shuttle down to Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone. We were now in Yellowstone National Park for the first time in winter--one of many firsts for us that day. We celebrated New Year's Eve by having dinner in the Dining Room at Mammoth, and by going to bed shortly after 10 pm, when 2008 has arrived in Boston.

Up bright and early on the first day of the new year, we spent the morning on a guided tour of Lamar Valley, and went out x-country skiing in the afternoon.

After two nights at Mammoth, we took a guided snow coach ride to Old Faithful. In the afternoon, we took a walk along the boardwalks in the Old Faithful Geyser Basin and reminisced about the time we spent here in September 2005. In the evening, we went back into the wilderness with the "Steam, Stars, and Winter Soundscapes" tour, which did not exactly live up to my expectations.

We spent most of the next day x-country skiing again. We came back rather tired, but still managed to have a rather eventful evening.

After spending two nights at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, we took the guided snow coach ride back to Mammoth Hot Springs.

It snowed all through our last night in the park, and it was still snowing in Mammoth when we were leaving. Despite all the new snow, our shuttle ride back to Bozeman was relatively quick, and extremely beautiful.

Memorable Facts
In the evenings both the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge hosted various events. There was live piano playing at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge every night. Some of the interesting bits of information I picked up at the 2 events that Nick and I went to:

• While in most places on Earth magma is approximately 40 miles below the surface, in Yellowstone magma lies only about 5 to 8 miles below the surface.


• Wolves and ravens cooperate when it comes to scavenging for food in the winter. Ravens might find a winter kill sooner, but they need wolves to break for the hide so that the birds can get to the meat.


• Snowshoe hare tracks look “backwards” relative to the direction in which the animals are moving because they first land on their front paws, and their hind paws then land beyond their front legs.

A Memorable Quote
“If you want a turtle, I’ll give you a turtle,” said I in an effort to get sniffling Nick to drink some hot tea. No animals were hurt in the process--the turtles were chocolate covered caramels.

From A Response From Alice Peisch, State Representative

Today I have received a letter from Ms. Alice Hanlon Peisch, State Representative, in response to the MBTA petition. (We have sent her a copy of the letter to Daniel Grabauskas, of the petition, and of the signatures). From her letter:

I hear daily from my constituents about the poor state of service on the Worcester-Framingham Line. Although I have had ongoing contact with the MBTA and the [MBCR] in an effort to work towards improved service, hearing directly from their customers about the gravity of the situation may be what will eventually motivate the MBTA and MBCR to implement real changes.

On the MBTA Response

In response to our petition MBTA General Manager, Mr. Daniel Grabauskas, has sent Alexander and I a letter addressing our concerns about the performance of the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail line. I am very thankful that MBTA took the time to read our petition and to respond. I am hopeful that such attitude will lead to improvements in the service.

At the same time, the letter is a bit vague on quite a few points. Many times the letter states that "actions are being implemented", or a "number of steps" have been taken. We wish the response specified these actions, steps, etc. Also I am afraid that the issue of discrimination against the "reverse" peak direction passengers has not been addressed.

As the next step, Alexander and I hope to compile a list of questions we have based on the letter, and send them to Mr. Grabauskas. Hopefully the lines of communication will remain open.

MBTA Letter In Response To Our Petition

The following is a word for word letter we have received from MBTA General Manager, Mr. Grabauskas, in response to our petition.

I am responding to your concern pertaining to service performance on the Worcester Line, focusing on those trains that operate in the “reverse” peak. I apologize for the inconvenience to you and the many other passengers who use these trains to commute out of Boston in the morning and return in the evening. While the overwhelming majority of our passengers travel in the more traditional “inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening” mode, we have experienced an increase in the number of reverse-peak riders. Your letter identifies a concern that we are addressing to provide passengers on the Worcester Lin with a safe, reliable, and customer0responsive level of service. Ot achieve this goal, the following steps are currently being taken.

• MBTA personnel review train performance daily with both MBCR and CSX personnel in an attempt to identify the cause of every delay. This review then creates the opportunity to initiate actions to minimize the occurrence of these delays.


• CSX, MBCR, and MBTA personnel are reviewing schedule modifications to increase on-time performance as well as minimize current schedule conflicts.
  
• MBCR has taken a number of steps to proactively address service performance on this line, including the hiring of additional personnel and implementation of increased equipment maintenance practices to address the number of equipment failures.


• Actions have been implemented to improve our ability to monitor train performance on this line so that we are aware of delays in a timelier manner. This will improve our ability to provide service delay notifications through postings at stations, on the MBTA website, and via e-mail through the recently started T-Alert program.


• MBCR has increased training efforts for on-train personnel that target the importance of providing timely and accurate service announcements for passengers on a delayed train.

I would also like to respond to your concern pertaining to the MBTA Customer Bill of Rights Reimbursement Program. The MBTA was one of the first transit operations to adopt this type of reimbursement program and we continue to review it to ensure it is working to the advantage of our passengers. In early 2007, the reimbursement program was modified due to the high level of fraudulent requests being submitted. Through the efforts of the MBTA Transit Police and our Revenue Department, we now have a process in place that provides reimbursement for those passengers who have experienced a substantial delay and also is successful in identifying fraudulent requests and allowing the legal prosecution of these offenders. Passengers submitting reimbursement requests through this program should expect to receive a response within six to eight weeks. At this time, this program is processing all requests within this time period.

Your concern about the lack fo shelter for passengers on the Worcester Line is also being reviewed. Commuter rain stations are designed with a base assumption that a passenger will be on a station platform for a minimum amount of time. This, of course, is based on the understanding that service will operate at a high level of on-time performance. Current efforts have been taken to improve the communication of expected service delays to passengers with the same goal of minimizing the amount of time spent waiting at a station platform. In addition, past expericne at stations with enclosed shelters has resulted in a number of security and vandalism concerns from our passengers. Regardless, we will continue to review each station on an individual basis and, if appropriate, attempt to identify positive steps to be taken to improve passenger facilities.

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns and allowing me the opportunity to update you the efforts being taken to address them. Your comments are deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,
Daniel A. Grabauskas
General Manager

The MBTA Petition Saga

Just learned that yesterday Metro Boston published a little piece on our petition: "Worcester line gets update" .

From Old Faithful Back To Mammoth Hot Springs

Our journey back to Mammoth Hot Springs area from Old Faithful on the snow coach flew by much faster. This coach runs in the afternoon, and the driver was trying to ensure that we got back to Mammoth before dark. Also, it was starting to snow, and while the conditions were still good, the driver was obviously straining while operating the vehicle.

We did stop at the Fountain Paint Pot and walked a half mile loop along the boardwalk to observe all 4 types of the thermal features—fumaroles, hot springs, geysers and mud pots. Because of abundant moisture available in the ground during the winter, the mud pots contained a lot of water. I remember them as being a lot more dramatic in the summer.

As we continued towards Mammoth, one of the highlights was seeing a female elk with a calf standing in the shallow waters of the Gibbon River right next to the road.

The Snow Pants Drama

Our last night at the Old Faithful Nick decided to go outside and look at the stars after dinner. Being just a itsy-bitsy afraid of the dark, I decided to stay behind.

Instead of carefully changing into the warm clothes, Nick just pulled on the snow pants right over his jeans. He gingerly blamed his jeans when the snow pants did not zip up all the way and ran out of the door.

Left to my own devices, I became terribly busy folding individual tissues just right to fit into my shell’s outer pocket. Suddenly a burst of siren noise ripped through my head. After a few seconds of terror, I realized that it had to be a fire alarm.

Continuing to think clearly, I grabbed my cell phone and my wallet, and eagerly walked out into the hallway. As I was about to close room behind me, it occurred to me that standing outside for even 5 minutes might not be too comfortable wearing just a t-shirt and warm-up pants. So I went back in.

Starting to rush just a tiny bit, I pulled on my fleece and hat, and tagged on the remaining pair of snow pants hanging on the hook by the door. The minute I got a hold of them I knew this pair of pants was not mine—they were just too big and too long.

Everything was clear now, but I had no time to wallow in my snow pant misery. I practically jumped inside Nick’s zipped up snow pants. Clutching my shell in one hand, and holding up my pants with the other, I joined the small crowd of people in the hallway filing out towards the exit.

A crowd was starting to form at the front of the hotel, when two fire engines pulled up to the front doors vigorously flashing their red lights. These were not your every day fire trucks. Rather the vehicles were red painted snow coaches with various fire fighting equipment strung all over them. Another 10 chilly minutes later, everyone was allowed to return inside, and the fire alarm was blamed on a garbage can that got bumped against fire alarm switch.

Nick, extremely pleased with himself, joined the crowd just as we were filing into the hotel lobby—he had a great time watching the stars and even saw the Old Faithful geyser erupt in the dark. He still had no idea why his snow pants were too small, while I wished I had gone with him. Watching Old Faithful in the dark seemed far better then mingling with severely underdressed guests, loudly complaining about the cold.

Skiing to the Lone Star Geyser

During our one full day at the Old Faithful Nick and I decided to ski out to the Lone Star Geyser. The first segment of the trail led to the Kepler Cascades and was marked as intermediate in difficulty on the map. While the rating made me worried, Nick remained confident in our skiing abilities. The second half of the trail was marked as easy and was pre-groomed.

From the start, skiing the intermediate trail seemed very difficult to me. On top of many uphills some brilliant soul decided to walk on the skiing track without skis leaving enormously wide and deep gashes in the track. The holes actually did not matter so much on the uphills, but whenever I was going downhill I was afraid that the tops of my skis would get stuck and that I would flip over. Luckily no flipping happened.

I was relieved when we finally reached the Kepler Cascades. We went out to look at them (together with over a dozen of snowmobilers)—we were here the night before, but we more heard them than saw them because it was completely dark.

The rest of the trail was extremely well groomed though slightly uphill all the way to Lone Star Geyser. We saw an American Dipper in the Firehole River, and a pheasant flew from under a tree near our path.

Lone Star Geyser is supposed to erupt approximately every 3 hours, and the eruptions last about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the geyser finished erupting shortly before we arrived. So we decided not to wait for another eruption, but we did break out a picnic lunch.

Taking skis off was out of the question—any step with a boot dropped you about 2 feet into the snow. So instead we worked on compacting the snow right next to the trail, and half laid down in this “clearing” in order to keep our weight spread out as evenly as possible. It was sunny and warm, and our peanut butter and jam sandwiches tasted like the best food ever.

Skiing back to Kepler Cascades went by a lot faster, probably because it was now mostly downhill. We took another peak at the cascades, as they looked different in the afternoon light. Nick tried to avoid part of the intermediate trail back from the Cascades by skiing along the road. I was too afraid of and disgusted with the snowmobiles to share the road with them. So I braved the ups and downs, as well as deep holes, on the intermediate trail. Eventually we met up, scaled a couple more uphills together, and we were back in the comfort of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge.

The Steam, Stars, and Winter Soundscapes Tour Review

This tour promised to “stimulate all of [our] senses”, and “reveal a whole new world” to us. In reality, I think this tour needs a few improvements. If the words “stars” and “soundscapes” are in the title, the guide should devote at least some portion of the tour to the skies and the noise level (or lack thereof). Of course the same tour with a different guide could be entirely different.

Regardless of what the guide knew or did not know, trying to get a group of people to shine their flashlights onto a geyser or a water cascade in pitch black darkness seems pointless. If the tour is about observing thermal features, let’s start the tour about 3 hours earlier, when it is still light out.

At one point the driver stopped at a pullout, suggested that we look out the window and commented that there we could see the aftermath of the forest fire. Did I mention that it was pitch black outside? After someone pointed out that we could not really see anything, the driver agreed, but proclaimed that if it was a full moon night, we would be able to see everything no problem. Great, except there was no moon at all.

Over an hour of the 2 hour and 15 minute tour was spent in a “Bombardier”—another form of a snow coach, as we were driven to our “destinations”. Being in a snow coach during the day is fun. The scenery we could see during our 4+ hour tour from Mammoth to Old Faithful was incredible. However, in the middle of the night, you can only see what is directly in front of the vehicle, and only if there is no fog (which there is a lot of when you enter the Lower Geyser Basin). So, dear tour designers, can we spend a little less time on the snow coach during the night tours—they are not that exciting.

The tour did have its high points. When everyone was trying to find the mud pots in the Fountain Paint Pot area with their flashlights, Nick and I were glaring up into the star filled skies. We do not know our stars well, (which is why we were hoping for a guide who did), but we were still able to identify Mars, Orion, the Milky Way and the Big Dipper. As the geysers steamed around us, the stars went in and out of sight, but multitude of the stars was still amazing.

This was the only tour where the driver offered us some hot chocolate when we got back in the Bombardier. Not only was the vehicle carrying several thermoses of the yummy hot drink, but the driver also distributed nice hot beverage mugs for everyone to keep. Very nice, but hardly making the tour worth while.

On a long drive back to Old Faithful, I saw a little snowshoe hare running up from the road. This was another highlight of the tour.

From Mammoth Hot Springs To Old Faithful

I swear the lady at the front desk said that we’ll be riding with the Tamarac. A real tour bus drove us (and another 20 some people) from the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel up to the snowmobile hut where the road closed for all but snow vehicles only. The snow coach drivers were standing by the hut. I approached one of them and asked her if she was the Tamarac. She took our tickets laughing and said that, yes, indeed she was THE Tamarac. Only 2 days later was Nick able to convince me that Tamarac was actually our driver’s name…






And so we set off for the Old Faithful Geyser area. Our ride was going to be about 50 miles and would take a little over 4 hours, including stops. A heard of bison was lying around on the road in the Swan Flats area. The snow coach moved very slowly trying to get around the animals, and would patiently wait until the animals moved if going around was not an option. During the winter all animals try to conserve energy, so the goal is not to startle them and to avoid making them run.

Tamarac has been working in the park on and off for over 20 years, and bald eagles seemed to be one of her passions. She got all of us trying to spot them while we rode the snow coach. One of the first places we stopped at was near the Roaring Mountain.

Today Roaring Mountain is a quiet thermal feature—a lot of steam rising from many fumaroles in the bulging hillside. However, when it was first encountered, the violent roar of the mountain could be heard at least 3 miles away. The load roaring ceased after an earthquake, which brought about changes to many thermal features in the park.

After a quick stop for bathrooms near Norris Geyser Basin, our drive continued along Gibbon River, and our next stop was by Gibbon Falls. Nick and I remembered stopping here back when we visited the park in 2005.

We passed by a carcass of a bison, that has probably been taken down by wolves no more then 2 days ago. The snow around it was very compacted and lots of tracks have been left around. When we saw the carcass again 2 days later on our way back to Mammoth, there spine has been detached, and hardly anything remained of it all.

Further on, the snow coach turned off onto the Firehole Canyon Drive, which runs along the Firehole River and made another stop so that we could enjoy the view of the Firehole Falls. Along the river we saw several Trumpeter Swans and a few American Dippers—little birds that sit on stones and logs in the shallow rapids and bob in and out of the water searching for food.

When we visited Yellowstone in September 2005, all the elk herds we saw had a single male elk. I expected to see the same now, but it turns out that males and females stay nearby only during the mating season (which is September). So during the winter most male elk stayed solitary, while the female elk walked around in smaller groups.

To see all the photos from this snow coach trip: Helen's photos, Nick's photos.

Skiing Near Mammoth

It was around 11:30am when we decided that we are going to take the 12:15pm ski shuttle out to Indian Creek and ski down to the Golden Gate area, and we had yet to rent some gear. However, with everyone being extremely nice and helpful we were ready to go with the skis and poles in tow.

The shuttle dropped us off at the Indian Creek where we immediately climbed into a warming hut, which was rather cold. The stove was not too cooperative, but the shuttle driver was able to get the fire going again. We still got a bit cold while gobbling down our peanut butter and jam sandwiches, but we warmed up quickly when we set out on our first skiing adventure in Yellowstone.

We skied a bit along the road, crossed a bridge over Gardner River and turned on to the ski trail. The path wound through the young pines, whose branches, bent under the weight of the snow, threw blue shadows across the path. When out in the open, we could see for miles across the snow.
















We were steadily moving towards the Bunsen Peak, at the foot of which we were to turn left at the fork in the trail, towards the road. Logs occasionally crossed our path, and a couple downhill sections tightly lined by the pines challenged our snowplowing techniques. To be honest, falling down was pretty easy, cushy and soft. It was getting up that at times seemed impossible.

The snow around us, mostly untouched except by animal tracks, was probably about 2 feet deep. We stayed on the trail already compacted by other skiers, plus the skis kept us on top of the deep snow. But when we fell, it was hard to find anything to lean against in order get back on top of the skis. Our arms and knees completely fell through the snow before providing any leverage. The ski poles worked better but were harder to maneuver.

We still had over a mile to go, when we realized that the last shuttle for the day would reach the Golden Gate area, our destination, in about 20 minutes. A small heard of bison hanging out no more then 50 yards from the trail did not improve my spirits. A few minutes later Nick convinced me to ski ahead, and soon we were out of the trees skiing on the edge of the Swan Flats.

I could see the road marked by the tall polls to prevent it from disappearing into the snow. I was concentrating on skiing as fast as I could, when out of the corner of my eye I could see the ski shuttle coming back from Indian Creek.

I stopped a couple of times flailing my poles wildly above my head to convey to the driver that we did indeed wanted to be picked up. Every guide and driver in the park seemed to be an expert at spotting and identifying wild animals out in the distance even when they were just mere specks moving across the snow. So I hoped that I would look like a rather large speck.

We were not ever in any real mortal danger. If we missed the shuttle, we would have had to continue to ski down either on the trail or along the road, both of which would lead us back to Mammoth Hot Springs. So we would not have had to spend the night out in the snow, but the sun has set, and the idea of skiing for another couple of hours in complete darkness did not make me feel all fuzzy and warm.

After a few agonizing minutes, the shuttle finally turned off the road and stopped right before the road disappeared around the bend. I slowed down and took a breath of relief. I was taking off my skis and happily chatting to the driver, when Nick reached the road as well. Soon all 3 of us were rocking down the hill towards Mammoth, wallowing in the warmth of the ski shuttle.

Lamar Valley

We decided against renting a car for this trip for 2 main reasons: winter weather could make driving over 90 miles between Bozeman, MT and Yellowstone National Park rather painful, and all roads through the park are close for regular vehicles, except for the road between Gardner and Cook City. This road runs through Lamar Valley, which is one of the best places in Yellowstone to observe wildlife. On our first day in Yellowstone we took the "Wake Up To Wildlife" tour to Lamar Valley.














The highlight of the tour was seeing a pack of wolves feeding on an elk carcass in the Soda Butte Creek, but we also so heards of elk, bison, a couple of coyotes, and a heard bighorn sheep.