Ski-doo is best known for its snowmobiles. Yellowstone National Park is best known for its geysers, wildlife, and herds of tourists in the summer. Combining Ski-doo and Yellowstone makes for a bucket-list trip.
Located in western US, Yellowstone resides largely in the state of Wyoming with portions of the park going over borders into Idaho and Montana. Yellowstone is about 3,500 square miles (9,064 sq km) of protected wilderness, plus several thousand more acres of surrounding forest reserve. It’s arguably the most protected wilderness area in the U.S.
I live on the other side of Wyoming, roughly 400 or so miles (644 km) away from Yellowstone. I have visited and toured Yellowstone several times in the past, but always during the peak tourist seasons of summer and fall. Winters in Wyoming are harsh. But a chance to see it in the off season without the crowds is something everyone should have on their bucket list. The travel to the park was harrowing, with small planes, flight delays, and questionable driving weather. But I got there. So did Ski-doo and its team of riders and experts. Including Jason, who usually gets lost. Along with several models of Ski-doo snowmobiles to try out. Including the only model currently allowed in Yellowstone proper. But there are a couple of others on the way that might add to that list.
At the west entrance to Yellowstone Park is the town of West Yellowstone. West Yellowstone clearly exists for one purpose: Tourism to the national park southwest of it. It’s a beautiful town, replete with themed restaurants (usually featuring western barbecue with local fish and bison), tourist shops, and outfitters. Then there are the tour guides. Lots of them. During the summer and fall seasons, tours on buses, open-top lorries, and more are all available. In the winter, tours are confined to snowmobiles and buses that look like monster trucks. In winter, those big-tired buses are limited to only a few areas of Yellowstone. Whereas snowmobiles offer not only open-air riding, but access to just about everything that’s accessible during the winter.
All of the tour operators in the winter use the same model of Ski-doo snowmobile. These are Ski-Doo Expeditions with the ROTAX 600 ACE. This engine is a four-stroke, versus the two-stroke most snowmobiles operate with, so it emits far less from its exhaust. Then with an added muffler to meet the National Park Service’s decibel requirement. Four-stroke engines in snowmobiles are rare. They tend to be bulky, complex, and underpowered for this kind of application. But Ski-doo figured out how to make it happen a few years ago and has been running with it since.
Most Ski-doo models are using two-stroke engines, especially the powerful turbocharged options. Now, Ski-doo also has two battery-electric models. So far they aren’t popular with Yellowstone tours, given their limited range, but that will likely change with time. Currently, the Grand Touring Electric, debuting this year, is very similar to the Expedition ROTAX 600 ACE in Yellowstone. It has about 31 miles (50 km) of range per charge. A smaller version, suitable for single rider use, debuted a couple of years ago and offers about 19 miles (30 km) per charge. For reference, the distance from West Yellowstone to the Old Faithful geyser complex is about 32 miles, one way. That’s roughly a third of the park’s total length, north-to-south.
I spent two days with Ski-doo riding snowmobiles. The first day was in the forest reserve surrounding the park, where there are no major restrictions on machines and plenty of trails to ride on them in various snow conditions. So ride them we did. Jason got lost a couple of times.
To get the day rolling, I started out with a Ski-doo Renegade 800 model. This is a sort of 'everyday' model with long tracks for a more comfortable ride, and a good ski width for easier balance. It's a great starter machine, especially for someone like myself who only rides once or twice every couple of years. I felt good on this one, getting into the groove of trail riding and a little snow plowing.
It’s here that I should probably explain a couple of things about snowmobiles. To start with, they are like personal watercraft in that much of the steering is about body weight shifts rather than turning the handlebars. Slight turns and easy trail going can be done entirely with the bars, but to really drive, you have to lean into the corner or out of the terrain slope. For me, this takes a while to recall as my instincts are largely based on riding four-wheelers (ATVs) and horses. So I naturally want to twist the handle (instead of pressing the thumb throttle) or shove with a knee to change speed or direction. Those with more experience on dirt bikes or jet skis will have a much better background for snowmobiling.
After the Renegade, I got on the Grand Touring. And I was in snowmobile heaven. This is the equivalent of a Cadillac, but in snow-going form. Its design is similar to the Renegade, with the longer track and well-balanced skis. But it sits a bit higher, has heated seats and hand grips, a heated thumb grip, and lot of other comfort features. Including hugely cushy gel-filled seating. I’m past five decades in age now and can greatly appreciate comfort as a life choice.
Then came the part that wasn’t based on comfort. Deep snow. For this, we took Summit and Freeride models. Built for that kind of hard work, these two Ski-doo options are long, thin in design and have deep tracks with aggressively digging tread. This makes cutting through deep snow easier, but will require the most body leveraging to maneuver. Going uphill in deep snow, for example, is basically just riding a wheelie. Lean back, throttle hard, and go upright to climb. Turning in deep snow, similarly, requires a lot of body lean and weight shifting. Jason got lost again.
Once back at base camp after all that deep snow riding, my body was pretty much done. My legs were jelly, my hips hurt from shifting weight repeatedly, and my right thumb was numb. It was a good day. Back at the hotel, I attempted to drown myself in electrolytes and took some ibuprofen while soaking in a hot bath. That worked – more or less.
The next day was a whole lot easier. And was the big day, as far as my bucket list was concerned. Yellowstone Park on snowmobiles. Hoaah!
We left West Yellowstone in a group on Ski-doo 600 ACEs. Eleven of us in all. This was a leisurely ride on machines tuned for long, simple rides without a lot of maneuvering. The trails in Yellowstone are smoothed daily and make it easy to just fall in and keep a steady pace for the 32-ish miles to the Old Faithful complex. We stopped to see wildlife, especially bison and coyotes, and took a side quest around some hills to see Firehole Falls.
Around those hills and over a ridge began our descent into the basin that is the huge caldera of Yellowstone’s making. From there, with a few stops to see another bison herd and a beautiful river next to which a bald eagle followed our group, we proceeded to Old Faithful. This is the centerpiece of Yellowstone. The geyser itself goes off at least once every two hours, depending on a few variables. Park rangers have entire data sets and computations to predict when each eruption will happen.
When Old Faithful goes off, it’s a tall, persistent geyser that spouts 50 or more feet into the air. Each eruption is several minutes long. Imagine an underground tea kettle, with water coming in one end where the handle would be, boiling magma underneath the pot, and a narrow spout pointing upwards to the exit hole. As the chamber of the pot fills with water, that water is heated to boiling. Eventually, it pressurizes beyond what the spout can emit in steam and the pressure builds to an eruption. Much of the water is jettisoned in the process and it all begins again. Because the magma beneath is moving and exterior temperatures can affect water temps going into and escaping Old Faithful’s chamber, the timing is not exactly on the clock. Hence the Forest Rangers doing a lot of math. Most of it is based on data from previous years and on the most recent eruption information.
And here’s where I can best explain why going to Yellowstone in the winter is the best. Anyone who has been to Old Faithful in the summer knows that the crowds to watch each eruption are huge. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of people gather at the edge to watch. The entire group watching our lunchtime eruption consisted of about 30 people. It was amazing to hear the eruption and sounds of nature instead of the loud ambiance of a crowd.
We then backtracked towards West Yellowstone again, stopping to get some photographs of nature and to see the bison herds once again. As well as a fox hunting in the snow on a frozen portion of the river. Because it was a pretty straight line, Jason didn’t get lost.
Yellowstone is a beautiful place and a big part of US heritage and history. Seeing it in the winter time from atop a snowmobile is about as good as it gets. Horses can’t go in the winter, so a Ski-doo sled is as close to horseback as one can get during the coldest parts of the year.
Product Page: Ski-doo Snowmobiles
