Yellowstone Winter Wildlife Safari

Yes!  Even if you’ve previously visited Yellowstone National Park in the summer months, winter offers a completely different experience.  Most of the park is closed to vehicles during the winter months but we are able to access the park through the north entrance and we travel along the northern region, open to vehicles and home to diverse wintering wildlife.  Winter is a fantastic time to visit Yellowstone, and you’ll want to plan accordingly and come prepared for winter conditions so that the trip is enjoyable for you. 

While wolves are the main winter attraction in Yellowstone National Park during the winter, the area is home to a number of creatures, both big and small.  You may see a herd of bison, elk or mule deer or you may spot bighorn sheep or mountain goats.  Canids, like coyote and fox are seen during the winter as well as birds of prey, like eagles and hawks.

The winter months can be harsh, especially on wildlife.  We keep our distance so we don’t stress the animals.  Your guide will bring binoculars for your use as well as a spotting scope to safely view wildlife in its natural habitat.  Guides generally know where to look to find wintering wildlife so a guided tour offers the best opportunities at seeing wildlife in the National Park.  For the ultimate chance at spotting wildlife, we recommend opting for a multi-day tour.  This gives you time over the course of several days to track and spot wildlife.

It can start snowing in Yellowstone as early as September, but the winter season typically begins in November and continues through March, with some late snowstorms in April. January is typically the coldest month, with average temps ranging from 1F to 25F daily (-3C to -18C), but temperatures can always fluctuate wildly in a day, even in the summer months. It’s important to check the forecast and always be prepared for changing conditions.

Yes! Compared to a lot of other National Parks, Yellowstone is a snowy place in the winter time. Snow can start falling in high elevations at the end of the summer season (September) and winter really settles in around November. It will keep snowing, sometimes heavily, into March and even April. An occasional snowstorm is not uncommon in May, or even June, but that snow is usually melted as soon as the sun comes back out. The interior of Yellowstone National Park is effectively snowed in from November through April, the only vehicles allowed being over-snow vehicles. The Lamar Valley remains open via one road from the north entrance (Gardiner, MT) through to Cooke City, MT. This is our winter route and it offers spectacular wolf watching, snowy landscapes and opportunities for exploring the area by snowshoe.

5 Stars
My husband and I took our kids (11 and 13) on the one day wolf safari. It was one of the best outings we have ever had! Our guide had an incredible eye for spotting animals while driving. He would immediately find a place to stop and set up spotting scopes so that we had amazing views of the wildlife. We saw a pack of 11 wolves frolicking after a meal and were close enough to be able to hear the pack howl. We also saw big horn sheep, elk, pronghorn antelope, 3 foxes, coyotes and were closer to a bison than I would have imagined possible. He was a fount of knowledge and the kids have not stopped talking about all of the cool things we learned about the wildlife and geography of Yellowstone. He brought warm clothes (as ski gear doesn’t keep you warm enough when standing outside the car and watching wolves for 45 minutes), tasty snacks and a yummy lunch. Yellowstone is baseline staggeringly beautiful but we would never have been able to appreciate and see the wildlife close up without Yellowstone Safari.
Katherine W.

5 Stars
This was my favorite part of a sister trip to Big Sky Country!
It’s hard to explain just how much I enjoyed this. I love nature, especially as I get older, and our guide made it that much more fun. He is AWESOME POSSUM. We met him in downtown Bozeman where he picked us up in a white SUV. We drove 1.5 hours to Yellowstone and man, during that drive down, he certainly filled it with all kinds of information! Never a dull moment, and trust me – I’M NOT A MORNING PERSON! Alas, he was able to point out so much wildlife and history before we even reached the gates of the park. He had so much enthusiasm, genuine, that it elevated my experience, as well as my sister’s, so very much. With the beauty of Yellowstone, you really can’t go wrong. Having someone like him by your side… takes it to another level that will make this unforgettable!
S. C.

5 Stars
AMAZING!!! My husband and I went on a day wildlife safari and we could not have been more impressed. Our guide impressed us beyond anything we expected. He was so knowledgeable about everything we saw. We can’t wait to go back and absolutely plan on booking again.
Autumn K.

Gray Wolves were extirpated from the lower 48 States by the year 1926. Some of the last wild wolves were killed in Yellowstone itself. The ecosystem suffered greatly from their loss, as well as the loss of many other predators such as mountain lions, grizzlies and black bears and coyotes. Those other animals rebounded slightly better than the vulnerable wolf. A coalition of National Park personnel, biologists, ecologists and wildlife management decided to reintroduce wild gray wolves from just over the border in Alberta, Canada in the Winter of 1995/96. 41 Wolves were introduced into Yellowstone’s Northern Range in total.

Wolves are an Apex Predator and as such are at the top of a very delicate and specific food chain. In Ecology we look at the ecosystem as a whole; how the various parts affect one another. Predators eat prey which in turn eats vegetation. All of this activity affects the landscape. A keystone species is an animal that has a more prominent affect on their landscape than others. Wolves are named such because their presence affects substantial prey animal movements (such as elk herds) and what they feed on throughout the ecosystem. This in turn vastly affects plant life throughout valleys, river bottoms and forests where a myriad of other species make their homes and thrive.