Snowed Under

West Yellowstone, MT –

“Are you stuck?”

I had watched in the mirror as the park ranger threw his SUV into reverse and backed up to where we were stopped. He had passed us a few moments before, on his way back into the park.

“No,” I replied as I pointed at Dore who was taking pictures out the passenger side window of the Caribou in the river below.

“Go!” he yelled at us as he threw his vehicle back into drive and began to pull away.

I took my foot off the brake and started driving slowly on our way to the park exit. The snow was falling fast, making the road slick, and it was a good photograph that Dore was trying to capture out the window, all reasons to take my time.

Once we were out of the park, we headed to the auto parts store we had seen earlier to try and buy some chains for our tires.

We were visiting in the in-between season. In this case, it was in the spring, just as they were clearing the roads of the winter snow and re-opening the park to visitors.

At least, they had been.

Until the snowstorm.

It had been very spring-like weather for the first half of the week. We had rented a cabin just down the road from West Yellowstone, across the state line in Idaho. And the roads in the park were open from the west entrance all the way down to Old Faithful in the south, up to Mammoth Hot Springs and the northern park entrance in the north, and even over to Yellowstone Falls in the midst of the park.

Well, at least until the snow came.

And they shut down — everything.

I don’t know what other options they had. After all, it was a lot of snow that was being dumped on us. It was already up to several inches and falling fast.

And we were in a car with low clearance, and Texas plates.

It was obvious to the ranger that we didn’t know what we were doing, trying to drive into the park with the snow falling.

So he chased us out.

I don’t blame him. He didn’t want us to get stuck, because he’d be the one having to get us un-stuck.

At the auto parts store, we special-ordered a set of snow chains, to be available for us the next day. Then we ran to the store, grabbed a few supplies, and made our way back to our cabin to hunker in for the day.

By the next morning, the snow had lessened to light flurries. We picked up our chains, and ventured back into the park.

Once we had gotten down to the Old Faithful area, we learned from one of the employees in the souvenir shop that the snow the previous day was the deepest they had had all year.

Wow! This was not what we had expected.

And it changed the complexion of the park completely.

Where a couple of days before it had been early spring, with everything starting to come back to life, now it was a winter wonderland, and just about everything was buried under deep snow drifts.

And they had shut most of the park back down. All we could access from the entrance at West Yellowstone was the road down to Old Faithful and back.

And it would stay that way the rest of the week.

The thing is, while this made for some beautiful vistas, it also made viewing the few open pools and geysers less attractive.

Anyone who’s lived a good part of his or her life in mountains has probably witnessed fog hanging over the water of a lake or river on a cool morning, when the water temperature is much warmer than the air above it. Consider the amplification of this phenomenon when the super-heated water in some of the Yellowstone fountains meets the extra cold air needed for snow.

Yes, there were some pools that were cool enough to not produce fog, but there were others that produced so much fog we could only see the edges.

Old Faithful was like a souped-up fog machine from a bad disco. The best we could hope for was a sudden gust of wind to blow enough of the fog away that we could get a quick glimpse of the water being spit into the air.

Then there were the walkways.

Away from the heated water, the walkways were buried under a deep layer of fresh powder. Above the heated water, the walkways were clear. However, the transitions between the two were nothing but ice.

We saw many acrobatic exhibitions as people gyrated wildly trying to keep their balance.

I can only imagine the performances we must have given. I’m just glad that I didn’t throw out my back…

For more photos of Yellowstone in the snow, click here.