Yellowstone National Park
For a few years now, a group of Lerro Photography regulars has been discussing a winter trip to Yellowstone National Park. Winter is a special time in the park—it’s almost entirely closed to regular vehicle traffic, and the only way to get in is on a commercial tour. You can take a snowmobile tour or a “snowcoach,” a small bus with massive floatation tires that can handle the deep snowpack on the park roads.
You can take public snow coach trips, but you don’t have control over the itinerary or how long you spend at each location. They also fill up every seat in the coach, leaving little room for big photo bags and creating congestion for those at the back of the bus to exit for a fleeting photo moment. The answer to this for photographers: charter a snow coach yourselves. The price is out of the reach of many photographers. Still, thanks to the friendships forged among this group of regulars after attending many Lerro Photography workshops and charters together, we were able to gather enough people to split an independent charter together. We chartered our snow coach for three days in January and arranged to pay for extra time to spend more time in the park’s depths, exploring the landscapes and viewing as much wildlife as possible.
On our first day, we had a foot of fresh snow and a pre-dawn temperature of -17 F. We boarded our snow coach in West Yellowstone before dawn and headed into the park. It was so cold that our breath fogged up the windows, and the cold glass turned it into frost. We all scraped our windows with our hotel room keys to clear out some space to get our first glimpses of Yellowstone in the dawn light, the new day’s sun glistening on the snow.
Our driver told us that there were reports of a fresh bison kill near a road, so we headed there. New carcasses mean great wildlife photography opportunities in Yellowstone, as all the scavengers in the park head over to get tasty fresh meat. On our first pass, no animals were at the carcass, so we headed off to do landscape photography in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. When we returned later, a young coyote was picking at the carcass, and we got a few pictures before it flitted away.
Yellowstone means bison, and in winter, the iconic image is a bison with its face covered in fresh, fluffy white snow. They forage for sustenance under the snowpack, sticking their faces into it; when they come up, the snow clings to their mangy fur. We photographed one herd and then encountered it again as it migrated to a new feeding site. The bison use the park roads to do this, as they’ve come to know that they will be accessible transit routes in the winter. (The park service doesn’t plow the roads, but they do groom them.) We got lucky as the bison passed right by our snow coach.
Day two started off with a money shot. After only being in the park for fifteen minutes, we came across a solo male bison covered in snow as it walked along the road. Our driver drove past him and positioned us in a safe location so we could capture photos of him with fresh snow on all the trees and ground. This was a shot that everyone had been hoping to get, and we nailed it. From there, we drove south, looking for wildlife and stopping for quick landscape shots. Once we got the schedule for the upcoming Old Faithful eruptions, we made our way there and set up for the next eruption. We captured the iconic spew and then explored the geyser basin here more. We wrapped the day at the Norris Geyser Basin. We walked into the basin past the bobbysock trees, which died and were petrified by the toxic chemicals leaching from the geyser basin. We enjoyed all the different thermal features, their heat turning into dramatic fog in the cold temperatures. We also photographed several bison near a geyser. One of them also walked into the warm water. Once we started to lose the light, we made our way back toward West Yellowstone. We made several quick stops to photograph wildlife on our way back.
On day three, we set back out for wildlife, and nature didn’t disappoint. We saw coyotes throughout the day in various areas of the park. On two different occasions, we photographed them hunting and capturing voles in the snow. We also captured a coyote as he walked along the river. Another highlight of the trip was capturing an eagle within thirty yards of us as it sat on a limbless tree near a parking lot. Our snow coach driver knew about the spot and took us there to see if the eagle was hanging around. Luckily for us, it was.
On the fourth day of the trip, we planned on driving several hours to the always-open northern entrance of the park in our own vehicles, but due to bad weather, we stayed in West Yellowstone. This worked out to our advantage as we spent most of the day taking great pictures at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. They had six grizzly bears and nearly a dozen wolves that were outside at various parts of the day. Our group had a blast photographing them playing, eating, and simply walking around in the outdoor snow enclosures. Bears and wolves are some of the most elusive animals in Yellowstone. In winter, the wild bears are hibernating, so this was a wonderful opportunity to see some species we wouldn’t otherwise get to photograph. The Discovery Center does excellent work rehabilitating and providing a home to animals that could not survive in the wild.
It was an amazing experience in Yellowstone and West Yellowstone. After seeing how much fun we had with this small informal group this year, I will run an official Lerro Photography workshop in Yellowstone in the Winter of 2025. Keep an eye out for the announcement – the tickets will go quickly!
