Yellowstone National Park spring travel offers a different view of the park from that enjoyed by summer visitors. (Ruffin Prevost/Yellowstone Gate file photo)
EDITOR’S NOTE: As roads into Yellowstone National Park start reopening for the 2012 summer season, we’re pleased to feature this previously published piece about springtime in the park. Peace and solitude will reward early Yellowstone visitors, but there are limited services available and road and weather conditions are unpredictable. Still, for the faithful few who make an early pilgrimage to Yellowstone, the rites of spring are always rewarding.
Originally published May 10, 2011 at WyoFile, a nonprofit news service focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
By Ruffin Prevost
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Many people speak figuratively of preparing for spring by saying they are “shoveling out” from winter. But maintenance worker Gary Maki and others preparing for Yellowstone National Park spring travel were literally doing just that recently, as the park opened for the summer season.
Many diehard visitors spent the day returning to their favorite Yellowstone haunts, marking a kind of summer “opening day” for nature lovers across the region. But for Maki, who has worked in the park since the 1980s, the day was mainly about digging out from winter.
Maintenance worker Gary Maki shovels a path through deep snow to a vault toiet at Lake Butte Overlook, near Sylvan Pass. (Ruffin Prevost/Yellowstone Gate - click to enlarge)
“I saw this when I first came here, but this is kind of a lot compared to what we usually get,” Maki said of piles of plowed and drifted snow that towered above his head at Lake Butte Overlook. The hillside viewing area near the park’s east entrance offers commanding views of Yellowstone Lake, and Maki was clearing a path to a vault toilet near the parking area.
Visitors say they cherish Yellowstone National Park spring travel as roads open each year. Not all dining, lodging and other services are open yet, and the weather is often chilly and wet. But the park is less crowded, offering a calm and peaceful alternative to the busiest days of summer.
The first motorists arriving from to the park sometimes drove through walls of snow that reached 10-15 feet above the road. Throughout much of the park, roads snaked through what felt like tunnels carved through virgin white snow.
At Fishing Bridge, an old auto repair garage had collapsed under several layers of wet, spring snow. Maki said the cave-in happened within the last week.
Across the street from the collapsed garage, Billings resident Camille Osborne was carefully navigating a parking area covered in snow, ice, slush and mud. Her open-toed wedge shoes weren’t ideal for the task, but Osborne said she was ready for spring, and had decided to dress accordingly.
Osborne said she had spotted a moose along the North Fork of the Shoshone River, just before entering the park. Fewer visitors streaming along the roads often means better chances to spot undisturbed animals, she said.
“You get to see more wildlife this way,” said Osborne, who often tours the park during its opening days each spring, when only a tiny fraction of Yellowstone’s 3.6 million annual visitors are making the rounds.
Nature photographer Gene Grove carries his camera and tripod along the road bordering the Yellowstone River. (Ruffin Prevost/Yellowstone Gate - click to enlarge)
Nature photographer Gene Grove was another spring regular taking in the sights on opening day. Grove was prowling the snow-covered banks of the Yellowstone River, taking pictures of rarely seen harlequin ducks. Less than 30 breeding pairs live in the park in a typical season, according to National Park Service estimates.
He proudly showed off close-up shots of the strikingly colored birds.
“I just love showing and sharing,” said Grove, 73, a retired doctor who has been visiting the park regularly for six decades.
Spring is a quieter time with no crowds and plenty to see, Grove said, so he wasn’t about to miss opening day. He made the drive from his home in Whitefish, Mont. despite hernia surgery just two weeks ago, a procedure that came with orders from his doctor not to lift anything heavy.
“My tripod is pretty light,” he said with an impish grin.
To see a gallery of more photos showing springtime in Yellowstone National Park, click the Flickr logo above. You'll be taken to an image set on Flickr, where you can check out more Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Gateway photos in our Yellowstone Gate photostream.
Plenty of tripods lined the road upstream from LeHardy Rapids on the Yellowstone River, where two bears had been feeding on a carcass early in the day, and where wolves were spotted near the edge of the woods by late morning.
Two small, dark dots moved along a snowy background in the far distance, barely visible with the naked eye. Photographers and wildlife watchers used high-powered lenses and spotting scopes to track the wolves’ movements.
“We wouldn’t have seen them out there if it was grass instead of snow,” one man told his shivering friend, who seemed less excited about the snow.
Nearby, a group of students from the University of Michigan were straining to see the wolves, and debated whether to return to their warm minivan.
“It’s supposed to be summer break, but it’s not much like summer,” said Gain Sasirajporchai, an engineering student from Thailand dressed in skinny jeans and sneakers. Wolves, bears and bison were new to Sasirajporchai, whose homeland has tigers and crocodiles — animals he didn’t feel were particularly exotic.
“We thought it was going to be much warmer,” he said. “I hate snow.”
Snow was precisely why three friends had made the trek to Yellowstone from Bozeman, Mont.
Greg Nelson, left, climbs from the plowed east entrance road in Yellowstone National Park to the base of snow at the roadside. Phil Hawkins and Thomas Naberhaus, right, wait for him to join them as they prepare to ski to the summit of Top Notch Peak, overlooking Sylvan Pass. (Ruffin Prevost/Yellowstone Gate - click to enlarge)
Thomas Naberhaus, Phil Hawkins and Greg Nelson were strapping on ski and snowboard gear atop a giant wall of snow that was level with the tops of vehicles parked along the roadside near Top Notch Peak.
The men were using alpine touring skis, covered on the bottoms with nylon straps that stop them from sliding backward. They planned to ascend the 10,245-foot peak that towers over the south side of Sylvan Pass.
Opening day offered a chance to make the run while it was still fresh and unspoiled, they said.
For others, a spring visit was a way to see a new and different side of a familiar park.
“We’ve been here at nearly every time of year, but we wanted to come on opening day because we had never done that,” said Anita Henna, visiting with her husband, Steve, from Twin Falls, Idaho. The couple has visited the park nearly every year for more than 20 years.
The Hennas had a prime spot atop a second-floor viewing deck at the Old Faithful Inn, where they watched a late-afternoon eruption of the reliable Old Faithful geyser. There were plenty of empty benches in a spot where, months later, the show will be standing-room-only.
“We like coming at different times and seeing different things,” Anita Henna said.
“That’s what’s really cool about Yellowstone, is it’s different whenever you come,” Steve Henna said. “It’s one of our favorite places in the world.”
For current road information and other advisories about Yellowstone National Park spring travel, call 307-344-2117 or visit the Yellowstone National Park web site.
Contact Ruffin Prevost at 307-213-9818 or ruffin@yellowstonegate.com.