JACKSON, Wyo. — It was mostly dark, the temperature was dropping and a bison intent on being testy was parked between our group and the entrance to Old Faithful.
The cow's reluctance to move off the road's compacted surface hinted at her intolerance, but we needed to pass. Dinner and a warm cabin awaited.
On our first attempt to snowmobile around her, she dropped her head, looked even more annoyed and, thankfully, thought better of charging. The reverse button and a seldom-used alternative entrance to the park's lone interior winter lodging area averted the type of encounter that, happily, I've seen only on YouTube.
It was a Thursday in late February and we were wrapping up the first day of a do-it-yourself snowmobiling trip into Yellowstone National Park.
For the decade leading up until late winter 2014-15, the heavily litigated activity was illegal without a guide. Our travels through the park were made possible by Yellowstone's "noncommercially guided access program," which just wrapped up its second season.
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As we snowmobiled north from Flagg Ranch that morning, the most striking part of the winter Yellowstone experience was undoubtedly the lack of people. Only about 100,000 of the 4-million-plus visitors who pass into the park each year choose to come when most of the high-elevation plateau is a world of snow and ice.
Arriving at the South Gate, we were greeted by cheery ranger Denise Altherr. Traffic is greater around Christmas and on holiday weekends like Presidents Day, but otherwise the crowds are thin.
Some of the snowmobilers Altherr checked in this winter had bitten off more than they can chew, she said.
"They sat at home watching some travel show in the convenience of their heated home and recliner," Altherr said. "They thought, 'Isn't that beautiful, I want to go do that.'
"Well, when we had minus-27 degrees for a week, you had a lot of wives mad at their husbands that had convinced them to do this," she said. "It wasn't the big romantic getaway they thought it was going to be."
Save for a snowcoach that rolled by at the South Gate, on the way in we didn't see another human for more than an hour. Impossibly, it felt like Yellowstone was all ours.
The solitude seemed to rub off. In more than a dozen times passing Lewis Falls, I had never previously felt a compulsion to stop. Perhaps camera-carrying tourists and chaos around the bridge were the deterrent. But in winter, without thinking about it, we dismounted our sleds, admired the icy cascade and took pictures of our own.
Yellowstone officials say it's a mixed bag of people who are taking advantage of the self-guided snowmobiling program. A good chunk — like the News and Guide's reporting team — were new to the activity.
"We've had everything from a single woman from a foreign desert country do a one-day trip all by herself out of East over Sylvan Pass," said Yellowstone staffer Alicia Murphy, who coordinates the program for the park. "She did just fine, having never snowmobiled before.
"A lot of people have also been snowmobiling their entire lives and have just been waiting to take this opportunity to come back into the park again without a commercial guide," Murphy said. "I would say that's way more common."
Yellowstone's do-it-yourself program is designed to be self-limiting. Only one party of up to five snowmobiles is allowed in through each entrance each day, limits set by a long-term plan that governs all forms of Yellowstone over-snow travel. The plan also allows a finite number of commercially guided snowmobilers and snowcoach passengers each day. That's how most people experience the park in winter.
All self-guided riders must take an online exam and earn an education certificate. The course, which takes about an hour, provides an overview of rules like the park-wide 35 mph speed limit and a requirement that all groups must stay bunched up within a third of a mile and keep behind their designated leader.
So far people have been good about policing themselves, Murphy said. Not a single citation was written the first winter. By comparison, in 2003, the last year before guides were mandatory, law enforcement rangers doled out 324 over-snow vehicle citations.
From the field, Yellowstone naturalist ranger Marc Hanna has watched the new regulations succeed.
"In today's America, where nobody seems to be getting along and we've lost the art of compromise, this is a victory," Hanna said from Madison. "It was hammered out in the courts and people were pissed off and angry on both sides, and we found a way.
"We found a way to keep people in business," he said. "I think it's America at its best."
Because of emissions and noise standards, only a few models of snowmobiles are permitted in Yellowstone. There's only one shop in Jackson Hole that rents qualifying "best-available technology" sleds, Leisure Sports, and what they'll give you is a Ski Doo Grand Touring Sport 600. With next to no points of comparison, it's a cushy trail sled that's straightforward to operate.
Disorienting and frigid fog that socked in the Firehole River valley greeted us as we awoke on day two. To avoid an Old Faithful out-and-back, our party headed north toward Madison, then on to Norris, Canyon, Fishing Bridge, West Thumb and back out the South Gate. In all, we logged more than 100 miles on the second day of the trip. Trying to cover Yellowstone's entire southern groomed loop in a day is a bit of a slog.
Snowshoes or cross-country skis are a necessity for traveling off the firm surface of the road, and offer a chance for human-powered recreation to break up a motorized tour. Neither, unfortunately, were strapped to our sleds. An attempt to gain the ridge above Grand Prismatic Spring via the Fairy Falls Trail was foiled by deep snow.
The boardwalks are accessible, though, and typically vacant of any people.
Wildlife watching and photography is a wintertime draw in Yellowstone, though the most prime areas are where the snow is most sparse. The Lamar Valley, a mecca for lens men, cannot be reached on over-snow vehicles.
On a snowmobile ride from her South Gate base to Mammoth days before, Altherr spotted wolves and a grizzly, which were already emerging from their dens in late February. Both carnivores, however, proved elusive on our trip. So did a bobcat that had frequented the Madison River much of winter, preying on the waterfowl drawn to its open waters.
Bison, elk and fox were easier to find. One Vulpes vulpes, memorably, scampered along parallel to the road for several minutes as steam wisped off the Lower Geyser Basin in the fading light. People were nowhere to be seen.
