On February 18, 2023 my sister Melissa and I decided to take a quick trip down to Yellowstone National Park for the day. Visiting the park in the winter is always fun, since the crowds are smaller and the winter snow gives everything a little bit different look and feel than during the warmer summer months. While you most likely will not see bears during the winter (although it is not impossible) other wildlife such as wolves and coyotes are more visible this time of year. The park is about a 3 hour drive, but with the days starting to get longer now, it is possible to spend a pretty full day in the park and still get back home at a reasonable time. Unless you are booking a trip by snow-coach, there are only limited places in the park you can go anyway, so you don’t necessarily need as much time as you would during the summer to explore. With that said, there are opportunities for cross country skiing and snowshoeing (and the aforementioned snow coaches) if you do want to access more locations.
As we approached the north entrance to the park, we started to see a lot of bison and elk out on the landscape outside of the park around Gardiner, MT. It is common to see some small herds of elk and bison outside of the park, but this year was the most I think I had ever seen. I believe the reason for this was because the snow conditions inside of the park forced animals to find easier grazing elsewhere. We did still see a lot of elk and bison inside of the park as well, but it was obvious they were having to fight through the snow a lot harder.
A large bull elk that still has his antlers inside the town of Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park.
With the historic flooding last spring that washed out the main road from Gardiner to Mammoth, you now have to take an alternative route from the north entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs. The main hotel in Mammoth was under construction this winter, so it was not open for tourists to stay. It appeared as though the snow-coaches were still departing from there however. We saw a few elk and bison roaming around inside the town-site of Mammoth which is fairly typical.
A bison using its large head as a shovel to move the snow looking for something to eat.
From there we headed to the Lamar Valley to see what we could find. We found a lot of bison and a few elk along the drive to the valley. Going down the valley we saw several coyotes and a lot more elk and bison, a lone bull moose and there were some American dippers along the river. We were hoping to maybe find some wolves, bighorn sheep or otters, but unfortunately we did not find any of those. We talked to a tour guide that had spotted a lone wolf a long ways off earlier in the morning, but that was all. We also stopped to look at a bear den where a black bear was just visible inside of the den. I tried to take some pictures, but the den was too dark and there were too many slow flakes in the air so it obscured the bear in the pictures I took. We drove almost all the way to Cooke City and then turned around and came back. On the drive back we found a couple more coyotes and a red fox. After almost returning to Gardiner on the way back out of the park, we did finally spot a few bighorn sheep far off in the distance.
A coyote looking a little suspicious in the snow.
An American dipper feeding by the river, not technically a great picture, but I wanted to include it for documentation.
One of the coyotes we saw had been struggling through the snow and eventually it laid down not too far off the road so we were able to stop and get quite a few pictures. I was using my Canon R5 with the Canon 600mm F4 version II with the EF-RF adapter. With all of the snow in the park, I was usually using between 1.5 and 2 stops of compensation to get the correct exposure. We were also able to stop for a few minutes and watch the red fox as well. I was photographing it with the same setup. For some of the larger animals in the park, when the 600mm was not necessary, I was using my Canon R6 with the Canon RF 100-500 lens. I find that the Canon 100-500 does a very good job with motion stabilization in video mode, so I have actually come to prefer that lens for video even over my 600mm F4 when possible. I don’t think the older Canon EF 600mm lens works quite as well stabilizing with the new IBIS on the Canon R5/R6. So in some instances I did switch over to the R6, 100-500 combo to grab some video clips after I was done getting still with the 600mm.
A coyote looking back at the camera while it was resting.
A coyote portrait against the snow.
A coyote laying its head down for a minute resting.
A coyote yawning, so you can see its teeth.
A red fox looking for a meal.
A red fox listening to hear if it can detect anything under the snow.
Even though we did not spot any wolves or more exotic sightings in the park, it was still a fun day. For anyone that has not visited Yellowstone in the winter, I would highly recommend it.