Yellowstone

The worlds first national park promised to be spectacular with the park gripped by the winter season and the animals still abundant.

It was a long journey from Portland to Yellowstone, we did a single night stop off at a motel to split the drive. During winter the only entrance open is the North entrance so we planned our visit around this and decided to stay in the little sleepy town of Pray which is in the state of Montana. Our accommodation was pretty special, a little two storey log cabin on the land of a ranch in the middle of nowhere surrounded 360 degrees by the Montana mountains I don't think we have ever woken up somewhere so beautiful before, it's quite nice finishing your journey during the night to then wake up completely oblivious to your surroundings.

Our first day we scoped out Yellowstone, arriving at the North entrance and being greeted by our first ranger was pretty cool, most National Park’s charge between $10-20 for entrance which is good for 7 days. Our first stop was the visitors centre to speak to the rangers and find out what trails and roads were open this time of year, the road linking the North and North East entrance is open all year round so we decided to drive the one and a half hour snow covered road in our first taste of Yellowstone. Whoa. It was unbelievable. As we drove in we were greeted by a Elk proudly showing his full rack (it's apparently what their antlers are called but it makes me giggle every time) which was pretty cool but he was then trumped by a herd of bison just relaxing and grazing in the snow, after 15-20 minutes of stopping the car and pointing excitedly the sight of bison out in the completely snow covered landscape became the norm, still amazing every time you saw them shovelling the snow out of the way with their powerful necks to reveal the grass below but you had to adapt to this otherwise you would be covering one mile in an hour, it completely blew us away.

Not only the bison were out to play there were bald eagles, deer, elk, hawks and a very exciting encounter with a pair of coyotes which we thought at first were wolves, one coyote decided the road was the best option of transport and headed right down the road at us and literally glanced the car, this place was unreal.

We then decided to take a guided trip of the south area of Yellowstone, the only way to do this was to take a ‘snow bus’, what basically looked like a super comfy school bus with 10 seats with its wheels replaced with snow tracks. Our guide from Tennessee was very knowledgable and had led quite the life as a ranger in several parks, including a trip to Antarctica for 6 months. He filled us in on all the local landmarks as we headed to old faithful one of the largest geysers in the world and also the most predictable (hence the name) as it erupts every 91 minutes pretty much on the dot. It was a fantastic sight to see, but we felt what followed was more impressive, the range of hot bubbling mud springs, thermal springs with beautiful coloured rings from the different heated bacteria around the water were all amazing and also to see the thermal springs casting clouds of steam across Yellowstone.

Along the way there and back our guide pointed out the various animals we came across and also a little background behind each of them, one of the highlights of the day was on our way back to our starting point when we got stuck in a traffic jam, but cars weren't the culprit, we were sat behind around 50 Bison making their way along the road which they did to save energy during the winter as it was easier than struggling through the waist deep snow, it was mesmerising watching these dudes plod along not at all fussed by us all staring and snapping away with cameras.

You have to keep reminding yourself that Yellowstone isn't a zoo, a safari or some other animal controlled environment, what your seeing is 100% natural behaviour, it's wild, nothing is controlled out here, wolves hunt and Bison move around in herds to protect their young, it's so easy to forget where you are, I've never experienced anything like this place in my life and I can't think I will again, maybe Africa could offer something similar but it's a totally different environment.

We were worried when planning this trip that Yellowstone wasn't going to be as accessible in the winter and that our experience wouldn't be what we had hoped, we couldn't have been further from the truth, I can't imagine coming in the summer with the 20 car lines and people crowded everywhere, winter was so quiet in the park, with the only way to access the park being via a snow bus or guided snowmobile it was such an unspoilt experience, all the guides and rangers all said they preferred winter to the summer, it's a totally different experience we were told. We both said we want to see it in summer but in no way would we change what we experienced in the winter.

Yellowstone has to be one of the most amazing places I have ever been, it's like nowhere I have ever seen before, it's pure wilderness and emotional when your out there with the Bison roaming, on this trip I think it's going to be almost impossible to beat Yellowstone, I can't recommend visiting enough, if your even considering it make it a priority, it will be a memorable visit whatever time of year you come.