RimRunning: Yellowstone Park XC ski trip

Yellowstone Park XC Ski Trip
Feb 7 & 8, 2009

My running club sponsors a xc ski trip to Yellowstone National Park every year. We stay in Gardiner, MT which is the north entrance of YNP. Saturday morning we drove the 5 miles to Mammoth Hot Springs and caught the 8:30 a.m. snow coach. There were 9 of us on this shuttle – 1 man and 8 women. Normally, we fill the early shuttle with 15 but some people cancelled this year. The plan was to ski the lower part of the Bunsen Peak trail and connect with the Sheepeater trail. We’d have lunch at the warming hut and then ski some more on the trails around there.

Unfortunately, the driver misunderstood our instructions and he drove right past our Bunsen Peak drop off point. We pounded on the glass when we realized his mistake but he was totally oblivious to the screaming women in the back. He opened the hatch expecting to see a bunch of excited skiers but instead found a bunch of sad faces. He felt really bad. The snow coach ride is my least favorite part of the trip. It has a cab with seating for 5 and pulls another unit behind which probably holds 10, which was where we were. The windows fog and frost terribly so you can barely see the scenery and there is no communication with the driver. The ride is very bumpy with everyone bouncing around inside. You can also smell the exhaust. I feel sorry for anyone with motion sickness or claustrophobia because you can’t even crack a window to get fresh air. You just have to laugh and make the best of it and get cozy with your neighbor as you bounce around. We lost about 45 minutes or so of time due to the miscommunication. When we arrived at the proper drop off point, we decided to mess with the driver a little. He opened the hatch and saw our sad faces so figured he once again took us to the wrong spot. We let him suffer a minute and then burst out laughing. He was so relieved.

The weather was superb and sunny with the morning temp a calm 20 degrees; the snow was perfect. Last year we had horizontally blowing snow and that can make navigation difficult. I get lost in a hotel so I would never ski this route unless I was with people who had done it many times before. The trail is marked with little orange markers in the trees but they can be very difficult to see especially if it is snowing. And there never seems to be enough o

f markers either. Since we were on the earliest shuttle, we might not have the advantage of having any tracks to follow. I would be skiing with 6 other women and they were all experienced xc skiers. They knew the route so I was not concerned.

The trail itself is basically flat and mostly easy skiing but I could tell my breathing felt labored with the over 7,000 foot elevation. There are few places where you have to side step or herringbone up hills and there are some interesting obstacles along the way like fallen trees, rocks, and stumps. The bison stayed out of the way so that was good. If they decide to stand in your path there’s not a darn thing you can do about it except make a very wide circle around them. One year, one of our club members was chased by a bison and that’s not a good position to be in.

This photo was taken right after we were dropped off by the coach and looking towards the direction we would be skiing.

This is the elevation profile from the trail head and includes the 2 mile loop we did around the warming hut. Don't let the graph fool you it is mostly flat:

Everyone started out overdressed and by one mile we started stripping. It’s hard to judge what to wear because the weather can be so different at the drop off point than it is at the Mammoth hotel where we catch the snow coach. No one had any major problems on the trail other than a few falls here and there. This year it was much easier to get up after falling because there wasn’t nearly the amount of powder as last year. I still feel a tad tentative on the skis after being injured last summer but survived a couple of minor falls just fine. After lunch we did a loop around the warming hut trails before heading back on the snow coach to soak in the Boiling River. We ended up with about 7 to 7.5 miles for the day which was a little short of our goal of 10 miles. Both of my Garmin charts are a little off on mileage because I can't seem to remember to start the darn thing.

Break time at the warming hut:

The Boiling River is probably the only place you can legally soak in the thermal wat

ers of YNP and it’s part of the tradition for this ski trip. The thermal water rushes over the rocks and mingles with the icy water of the Gardner River. The water temp is perfect but you have to keep moving around to find the sweet spots. Getting out is interesting. There are no changing areas and it is too cold to wear a wet suit for the hike back to the car. So you pretty much just have to drop your swimsuit, quickly throw on dry clothes, and hope no one minded seeing your naked body through the steam. Skinny dipping and alcohol are both prohibited and enforced. We saw a ranger bust a couple of college-aged kids for having beer. That seems a bit severe to me but it is clearly posted. That night our club had a potluck dinner and then several of us played ping pong in the motel game room, which was a hoot. I can still play a mean game of ping pong – even left handed.

Sunday we ate breakfast with the group and then split up to do our own thing. Three of us went the short distance to Jardine, MT for more skiing. Jardine is an old western gold mining town near Gardiner but it is basically a ghost town now. We skied about 5.5 out-and-back miles on a forest service road which had nice ski tracks for the majority of the way. The first part of the route was a comfortable climb of nearly 500’ and we enjoyed beautiful views between the trees along the way. Again, the snow and temperature was perfect. We stopped several times to take photos and talk to other skiers. The trip down felt effortless.

I’m really happy with how my knee felt on this trip and the IT band caused no trouble. My only problems were a couple of minor blisters in odd places.

Jardine Elevation Profile. I forgot to start my Garmin so it’s a little off but this was about a 500' elevation gain so a nice, steady climb.