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Old January 8th 07, 10:58 PM posted to rec.outdoors.national-parks,rec.skiing.backcountry,rec.skiing.nordic,rec.travel.usa-canada
James
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Posts: 8
Default Skiing Yellowstone

Edgar wrote:

James wrote:
Has anyone done any skiing in Yellowstone? Jim

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Yes if you mean Yellowstone as in National Park.

The road from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful is groomed (for
snowmobiles and the snow coaches) and is skatable although motorized
traffic beats up the trail. If you ski from Old Faithful to West
Yellowstone the 50K will be generally downhill but a lot of flat.
(You can ride a snow coach to Old Faithful).

Whoever does the road grooming also sets some classic track near Old
Faithful, but again, the snow machines tend to run over ski tracks.
Most of the trails around Old Faithful are classic skier set track.

The geology of the geyser basin (as in Old Faithful) results in wamer
ground conditions that West Yellowstone and the snow transforms faster
than outside the basin.

The park website has sketch maps of the ski trails.

Snowmobile restrictions (of a couple of years ago) required "best
available technology" meaning mufflers and 4-cycle engines, and
liscened guides to keep watch over the snowmobilers. The rules also
limited them to something like 900 per day.

There are better places to ski with respect to snow, but Yellowstone
is hard to beat re scenery and wildlife. We had difficulty
conforming the to the Park's wildlife separation distance rule when a
couple of bisons started running down the trail we skiing.

Edgar


Thanks. We live in Idaho are thinking about making a trip over. Jim

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