A
clear winter's day at Old Faithful Snowlodge in winter. This shot was taken
along the ski trail I used to ski back and forth to work on every day.
It was definitely a much nicer way to get to work than dodging psycho drivers
on the interstate while breathing pure smog. The animals congregate
in areas where the thermal waters or warm ground expose the ground. It
is much easier for them to get food when it is not buried under five feet
of snow and ice. Because of this the geyser basins are usually jammed with
bison and elk. Sometimes it is so crowded with them it is hard to get around
them. Here they are congregating at a sort of shallow pond or puddle
where the warm water collects.
Bison
in the steam and mist at Tortoise Shell Spring near Castle
Geyser. The steam clouds are especially thick in the cold air of winter,
so the geyser basins look more eerie and otherworldly than ever. Yes, the
animals do sometimes fall in. Stupid bison, don't they know wandering off
the boardwalks is illegal? Those darn rangers just let them run around
like a bunch of wild animals, trampling the fragile sinter, goring people,
eating wildflowers and everything. But seriously, that particular
hot spring in the foreground is superheated - the water is above the boiling
point. The result is soup when they fall in. I have pictures
and a short story about when that happened at a hot spring right across
the river from this one.
A
bison carcass in the Upper Geyser Basin. Actually, it's probably
two dead bison. There is a fresh carcass and also an older portion
of a spinal column from some large animal. A lot of grazing animals
starve to death in Yellowstone in the winter. The climate is very harsh,
and food is hard to get. There are a lot of carcasses in the basins
by springtime. The bears like it when they come out of their dens
all hungry in the spring. The bison that have been leaving the park
in recent years haven't fared any better than this one either. The
state of Montana decided they should all be killed if they leave the park
because they sometimes have a sort of cow venereal disease called brucellosis.
Of course the more numerous elk, which also have brucellosis, don't get
this kind of treatment. In fact, they get fed during the winter outside
the park to keep their numbers artificially high for hunters. During
the winter of 97/98 the herd went from 3000 to 1000 animals. About
1000 starved and 1000 were shot when they left the park. In more
recent years less have been killed, but evidently the park service has
started to capture animals inside the park and sending them off to slaughter.
The Buffalo Field Campaign
is working on this if you want to read more about it.
A
bombardier snow coach unloading food at Snowlodge. Since there are no plowed
roads into the interior of Yellowstone in the winter (Mammoth and the road
across the northern part of the park to Cooke City are the exceptions)
everything that comes into Snowlodge comes over the snow. The bombardier
is the most common type of snow coach that Yellowstone Park Lodges Company
runs. The ride tends to be bumpy and noisy, the coaches tend to get
too warm for people who are bundled up against the outside weather, and
the drivers often drive like maniacs (knowledgeable, kind, and helpful
ones though). Snow coach rides are an adventure.
I think the bombardiers are in the process of being replaced. At least they have been talking about it. The old Snow Lodge behind the bombardier has been torn down and replaced. Change is usually bad. I kind of liked the old Snow Lodge. It was a cinderblock dump with no private bathrooms, just old converted employee cells, I mean dorms. But the new fancy Snow Lodge that replaced it, that they spent who knows how many millions on, there is something disturbing about it's cheap pre-fab looking faux rustic opulence. Maybe it is because the wood is not stained or painted a dark chocolate brown like in every other national park building. At least they haven't put televisions in the rooms yet.
Cutting
snow off the roof of the store at Canyon Village. The gentleman on
the roof is a big guy. Even though he is sitting in the photo, you
can see that the snow gets pretty deep. Here he was cutting blocks
about the size of a super tall refrigerator and walking them over the edge
of the roof. From what I understand that is the main part of his winter
job. I guess it gives him something to do, keeps him from going psycho
like in that movie The Shining. It probably keeps the roof
from caving in too.
Castle
Geyser in winter, on a rare bright day. Winter in Yellowstone can
be kind of dim and dreary. Geysers erupt in the winter pretty much like
they do in the summer. In the winter the steam and spray make all
sorts of strange frost and ice formations on the surrounding trees and
fences and whatever else happens to be around. Castle is a large
(usually) predictable geyser with an impressively loud steam phase after
the water runs out. It's cone, made of silica that very slowly precipitates
from the water (perhaps one inch per century) is the largest of any geyser,
and therefore probably one of the oldest.
The
bank of the Firehole River, in the Upper Geyser Basin. Portions of
the Firehole and some other Yellowstone streams stay free from ice all
winter long, even though the temperatures can fall to 40 below or lower
because of all the hot spring water. This allows a few waterfowl
to live in Yellowstone year round.
Elk
grazing in a thermal area, Upper Geyser Basin.
The
Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. Depending on how cold the weather gets,
waterfalls in Yellowstone can become partly (as here) or completely encased
in a cone of ice in winter.
A
Clark's Nutcracker, in a tree at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. At
least someone told me it was a Clark's Nutcracker. I don't know birds very
well.
A
very frosty fence. This fence is the one in front of Scissors Spring
in the Upper Geyser Basin. The steam from the hot spring has caused
the fence to become completely covered in frost.