Winter’s Grandeur
By Frank Fellone
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
February 26, 2017
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — This park in winter is a picture-taker’s dream. Even for amateur photographers who can hardly move for the multiple layers of clothes that keep visitors from the sunny South from nearly freezing to death.
Put it this way: Wear long johns or suffer the shivering consequences.
Driving from Little Rock to Yellowstone National Park would be a trip of about 1,600 miles. In the dead of winter, that would be interesting, to say the least.
Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier and United airlines fly into Bozeman, Mont., whose airport is 90 miles from West Yellowstone.
An alternative is to fly into Jackson Hole, Wyo., whose airport is served by American, Delta, SkyWest and United airlines. An advantage of flying here is that it lands right in Grand Teton National Park.
The drive from the airport to West Yellowstone is about 125 miles, and goes over Teton Pass, through part of Idaho and into Montana.
Information about what to do and where to stay in and around West Yellowstone can be found at destinationyellowstone.com.
Who goes to Yellowstone — in the northwest corner of Wyoming — in the dead of winter?
Not many people, and that’s the charm.
Dave, our guide on an eight-hour excursion into the park, won’t work as a guide during the summer, he said. Too many people.
The stats tell the story. Yellowstone gets about 4 million visitors a year, according to figures compiled by the National Park Service. About 900,000 of them come in July, about a quarter of all visitors. That’s about 30,000 visitors a day.
(Copyright © 2017, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC.)
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