Yellowstone Wolves in Winter
 

Has anyone made the trip to Yellowstone in winter to see the wolves? Can you give us some pointers, please?

Alki Tours (Seattle based) has a "Yellowstone in Winter" tour that we took a couple of years ago. We heard the wolves (full moon, eerie) but didn't see them. Saw lots of other wildlife, though, and the naturalists are excellent. To the best of my knowledge, you can't drive into the park, because we were picked up in West Yellowstone and taken out the south entrance by Sno-Cat. All vehicular movement is by snowmobile or Sno-Cat.

Do it! It is magical.

The road from the north entrance at Gardiner is plowed and open to vehicular traffic up to Cooke City. This goes through Lamar Valley which I understand is a good place to try and spot wolves. We didn't join a wolf watching tour but did see the Slough Creek pack in this area one day. They were quite a distance from the road, difficult to see even with binoculars, but some really nice wolf watchers let us look through their 60X spotting scopes.

The Yellowstone Association offers multi-day wolf programs in the winter http://www.yellowstoneassociation.or...Catalogs/2.pdf

Shorter day tours to Lamar Valley are available from the Mammoth Hot Springs lodge on certain days in the winter. These focus on the general wildlife.

Even if you don't see wolves, Yellowstone in winter is an amazing experience and you'll still see lots of other wildlife.

I posted a trip report and photos from our visit last year http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34757439

We visited in February and stayed at the Snow Lodge, about 200 yards from Old Faithful. Don't know if OF is the tourist magnet I had considered it to be, but there were no wheeled vehicles in the portions of the park we toured in Sno-Coaches (bigger than Sno-Cats...sorry about that).

Thank you both, your information is helpful.

Here's a report of a winter trip I took a couple of years ago.

http://www.homeaway.com/info/travele...tone-in-winter