For us, we got ready and packed the car in record time. We were on the road to Mammoth by 6:15. We had to stop for gas so we wouldn’t be leaving the car sit for 5 days with a near empty gas tank. While we were at the Conoco, we saw a cottontail in a yard across the street. The moon was up fairly high, just a sliver past full. No one was at the entrance station, so we breezed through into the park. It was too dark to see anything on the hillsides, but we could see several elk grazing near Boiling River. We unloaded at the hotel and got our snow coach assignments. Only two coaches were going down and one of them was a Yellowstone Institute Winter Wonderland tour. Doug would be on our coach. We stopped at the dining room for some breakfast. Doug joined us just as we were finishing. The Prinoth and the shuttle bus arrived not long after we returned to the hotel, so after loading our luggage, we got on the bus. As soon as the Institute tour assembled, we headed up the hill to the snow coach station. Our snow coach driver, Craig, was one of Yellowstone Girl’s trainers, and he told us of a wolf sighting they had near Norris on one of their training runs. Our snow coach was one of the Mattracks; in fact it was the one we were on last year that had lost its hub. They have now replaced the hubs with the heavy duty model, so perhaps we will be spared that fun this year.

The Golden Gate area was bare of snow. The NPS had spread wood chips to provide traction and steering for the vehicles with skis. With the Mattracks, we had no trouble navigating over bare road, snow, or wood chips, so we had no worries. In Swan Lake Flats, the grass was sticking up about a foot over the snow, where last year it had been covered. The wind had swept the snow into intriguing patterns; each tuft of grass had a snow wake trailing behind it. Bison and elk populated the edges of the Flats, sticking to the areas with some shelter from the wind.

The sun reflected against the flat white face of Antler Peak. I’d never noticed that before, probably because we’d always had overcast days when we came through there. Just before Willow Park, we came up on a bison herd in the road. The Prinoth had preceded us, but waited for us to go ahead. Our snow coach driver said that was because if the bison got feisty, the Prinoth could not outrun them. He moved our snow coach up behind the bison and virtually forced them to give way. After a quick picture stop at Roaring Mountain, and another quick stop to listen to Frying Pan Spring, we made our way to Norris for a bathroom break. I’ve learned from other years to never pass up a bathroom stop, regardless of the type of facility. The Norris basin was extremely steamy; we were hoping for a Steamboat eruption, but no such luck.

Elk Park was empty – the snow wasn’t even broken, which was a big change from what we were used to on the northern range. Up there, you can’t see four square feet that doesn’t have some sort of tracks through it. Here the snow was a smooth unbroken surface as far as we could see.

At Beryl Spring, the driver told us that two new acidic thermal features were discovered underneath the bridge. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do about them, because there was some concern about the acid eating away at the bridge supports. The parking area has been expanded and appears to be paved. At Tanker Curve, you can see that the new road bed over the hill is well prepared and looks like it should be ready for paving. At the other end, near Gibbon Falls, you can see where it stops, waiting for the bridge over the Gibbon River to be built. In fact, you can see a Bridge Out Ahead sign up on the new road. At Gibbon Falls, the snow was so thin that the snowmobilers were not able to do their traditional slide down the hill across the road. You could see where they had tried, but it looked like they crashed into rocks sticking up through the snow. The paving from Gibbon Falls to Madison appears to be finished – at several of the pullouts you could see the asphalt through the thin snow.

We stopped at the Madison Warming Hut for a quick bathroom break and then headed up Firehole Canyon Drive, which is now closed to snowmobiles. We stopped for pictures at Firehole Falls and continued back to the main road. Four swans were swimming in the Firehole just past Christmas Tree rock. The Firehole was full of goldeneyes, mallards and Canada geese (not Canadian geese, since, as Doug pointed out, we don’t know if they are from Canada). We drove back Fountain Flats Drive, which is also closed to snowmobiles, and stopped at Ojo Caliente. We saw a pair of swans in the Firehole. When we got to Fairy Falls trailhead, we saw a snowmobile parked there, even though snowmobiles are not allowed on the road. When we got closer, we saw it was a wildlife researcher snowmobile, but the researcher was nowhere in sight. Right before the iron bridge, we noticed a huge pothole had opened up in the road. Our driver was able to ease around it, so we weren’t jarred by the impact. Back on the main road, we saw a few more bison and elk, but not much more on the way down to Old Faithful. The road at Black Sand Basin and at the Old Faithful cloverleaf was covered with wood chips. We were surprised by the number of bare areas on the road this year. We’ve never seen so many spots where they had to spread wood chips to make the road passable. The snow is extremely thin everywhere in the park.

We got checked in and got our cabin assignment. This year we chose a Frontier cabin for the first time and I was surprised by the size. We have two double beds and a large area in front of the desk for gear. I had expected a much smaller space after having stayed in the Frontier cabins over by the Lodge. The Western cabins really are not worth the price differential. While unpacking, we heard a call over the radio that Beehive indicator was erupting, but by the time we got out past the gas station, we heard another call that Beehive was erupting. We made it in time to see the end of the eruption. When we checked the prediction board, we saw that Castle was due to erupt at 1:30. Since it was now 1:15, we figured we had enough time to get out there. On the way out, we saw a Plume eruption. When we got to Castle, nothing much was happening, so we just sat and enjoyed the view. Little Cub went off in the distance. Doug wandered out and joined us for awhile. Arum erupted shortly after he arrived. By 2:40, we had about given up on Castle, thinking it might have minored, since it gave a couple of 10 foot spurts. It had started to snow and we were getting cold since we hadn’t really dressed to sit in the geyser basin for so long. We decided to head back and see what was happening at the Snow Lodge. Doug headed on out toward Daisy. By the time we got in front of the Inn, Lew looked back and saw Castle erupting. We reversed course and got back in time to see most of the eruption. On the way back to the Visitor Center, we heard Fan and Mortar called, but there was no way we could make it out there before it finished. We later learned Doug and MicL were fortunate enough to see it.

When we got back to the Snow Lodge, Krazy Karen came out for a visit and she told us Matthew, the Funkygeyserman was working in the gift shop. We had a brief visit with him and made arrangements to meet on Tuesday night. Matthew said there were only sixty some people staying at the Snow Lodge tonight. We noticed there weren’t many people in the geyser basin today. We made dinner reservations and went back to the cabin to get caught up on trip reports before dinner. Just as I sat down to write, Doug knocked at the door and we had a long conversation about all things Yellowstone. By then it was time for dinner, so Doug joined us. We got back to the cabin around 9 p.m. and fell into bed.