Recently, a couple of friends and I took a daytrip to Yellowstone National Park. The plan was to make our way to Cooke City via the North Entrance. Although I have worked in the park, I have spent very little time there in the winter, and could not have been more excited about this adventure.

The drive through the Paradise Valley was beautiful, and after meeting old friends in Gardiner for coffee, we headed into the park. We had barely cleared the entrance station when we saw a big horn sheep. It turned out to be a good omen for a day filled with wildlife sightings.

The first stop was for a soak. After changing into swimsuits as quickly as possible in the chilly outhouse near the Boiling River trailhead, we began our hike to the access point. I didn’t know what to expect of the short hike to the soaking area in the winter. Luckily, the start of the day was relatively warm, and the trail was packed down.

I am not sure if getting into or out of the water in the winter was the more shocking experience, but I am sure that it was worth it. The soaking area is marked off with rocks where the cold waters of the Gardner River are mixed with hot spring water. In the summer, I enjoyed the swirling mix of temperatures. In the winter, the initial entry through cold water was a bit rough. As we awkwardly picked our way over the river rocks through the cold currents, past groups of people already established in comfortably warm pockets of water, we questioned our decision making process.

Once established in a predominately warm pocket of our own, all doubt was washed away by the soothing waters. I don’t think I’ll ever get over sitting in a river in Yellowstone National Park during the winter.

After a mad dash to the piles of clothes and towels, we walked back to the car and continued towards Cooke City. As is normally the case in Yellowstone, it was a beautiful drive, made all the more so by the lack of traffic sometimes encountered in the summer. Also, there were animal tracks to be seen everywhere in the snow.   I found it interesting to experience the movement of the wildlife in a whole new way.

But we saw more than prints. After cresting a curved hill, we spotted a bull elk with massive antlers. There was a parking lot nearby, and like proper tourists, we leapt from the car with cameras at the ready (the elk was at a safe distance).   At this point, we realized there were actually two bull elk with massive antlers.

After extricating our car from the jumble of others that had accumulated to watch the elk, our luck continued, and we encountered the first of many bison jams for the day. Although I understand some peoples’ frustration with animal jams, I also totally understand the urge to participate in a jam. My heart still skips a beat when confronted with a wild bison, let alone a herd of clomping, grunting, tussling bison. I’ll say it; I love being stuck in a Yellowstone animal jam of any variety. We were behind someone who apparently did not feel the same way, and seemed to be trying to herd the bison out of the way of her sedan.

The rest of the drive to Cooke City was filled with breathtaking scenery and bison clogged roads. It was wonderful. When we finally did arrive at our lunch destination way behind schedule, we were famished.   The Buns N Beds is a good place to wind up if you are hungry. After a delicious lunch followed by cheesecake, I thought the day couldn’t get any better.   I was wrong.

On the way back through the Lamar Valley, as the setting sun lent a stream alongside the road a golden hue, we spotted wolves. They were quite far away, but fast and unmistakable. By this time it was decidedly cold, but we took turns with binoculars and a spotting scope watching the wolves run across the valley in the vicinity of a large group of bison.

Utterly content, we began the drive home, which was gently illuminated by moonlight.

I can’t wait to go back.

After visiting the west at the age of fourteen, Jamie Balke has been coming up with progressively more elaborate schemes to never leave.