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Article
Last Updated: 02/18/2006 12:33 PM
MST

Quiet season gets howling
Winter is a great time to visit Cody and
Yellowstone National
Park

By Tom Wharton
The
Salt Lake
Tribune

CODY, Wyo.- Winter
marks the quiet season in Yellowstone Country.

Bighorn sheep wander off the Buffalo
Bill Scenic Highway near the east entrance to Yellowstone, all
but oblivious to the rare vehicle making the 53-mile drive
from Cody to the place on the road where snow prevents
travelers from continuing into the park.

Antelope dwarfed by the giant Absorka
Mountains stare at a photographer not far from shaded canyon
walls where ice climbers work their way up frozen waterfalls.

Cross country ski trails that surround
Buffalo Bill's Pahaska Tepee Hunting Lodge near Yellowstone's
east entrance are carefully groomed, ready for a weekend
crowd, but empty on a Thursday morning.

There are other wonders for those making
the spectacular 3 1/2 -hour drive from Cody to Yellowstone
Park's headquarters at Mammoth and the only year-round road
open to automobile traffic between there and Cooke City, Mont.

The historic Mammoth Hotel remains open
until March 5, offering television-free rooms at much lower
rates than during the summer. A big fire roars in the lobby
where a piano player entertains each evening. At night, the
quiet can almost be disconcerting to those used to the city.
People who live here say it can be pierced by the sounds of
howling wolves and coyotes.
When the sun
rises, it is possible to have the huge Mammoth Hot Springs
boardwalk and hiking trails inside Yellowstone Park to
yourself. A groomed ski trail skirts the top. Pools bubble and
steam, offering myriad colors and icicles. The occasional elk
searches for food.
Wolf watchers gather
in the Lamar Valley on the 56-mile road inside Yellowstone
connecting Gardiner and Cooke City, Mont. Many use spotting
scopes in search of the predators. They often spot elk, bison,
ravens and the occasional eagle and coyote.

Ardythe Wendt, marketing coordinator for
the Yellowstone operation of Xanterra Parks and Resorts at
Mammoth, said she once watched a wolf run in front of her car.
Four more followed. Then she observed what she described as a
"dance party thing" when the animals appeared to be
celebrating successfully crossing the highway.

George Bumann is a naturalist and artist
who leads winter and summer tours for the Yellowstone
Association, a nonprofit educational organization. Few things
escape him.
As he prepared for a
wildlife watching expedition on a late January afternoon, for
example, Bumann exulted when he saw a Uinta squirrel scamper
near the Mammoth Hotel. Critters such as owls, dippers and
ravens excite him nearly as much as the wolves, bison,
bighorns and elk.
Bumann is a walking
Yellowstone encyclopedia, offering information about geology,
fires, grizzly bears, butterflies, hot springs, animal tracks,
pines and firs and recreational skiing.

Bumann also offers as many facts as he
can muster about the many controversies that surround
Yellowstone's wildlife, including debate over grizzly bears,
wolves and bison hunting. Ultimately, he declines an opinion,
preferring his students use information to come up with their
own.
The Yellowstone Association's
winter season ends soon, but the group is gearing up for
educational programs during the summer that include one-day
natural-history tours, group programs, field seminars and
backcountry courses - all at surprisingly reasonable prices,
including some under $200. Even Wasatch Front residents who
consider themselves Yellowstone experts can learn from these
instructors.
Summer classes, which begin
in May, include wildlife explorations, photography and
wildflower workshops, first aid and map reading courses,
sketching and journaling classes, roadside history tours and
instruction on mammal tracking.
Claudia
Wade, marketing director for the Cody-based Park County Travel
Council, likes to help visitors drive backroads around the
town. There are hot springs, dude ranches and wildlife viewing
areas.
Back in Cody, a top attraction is
the 300,000-square-foot Buffalo Bill Historical Center on
Sheridan Avenue.
Buffalo Bill Cody
founded the town in 1896. At the time, Cody was among the most
famous men in the world, most notably for his work as a
Western showman who traveled the world.

The historical center named after Cody
includes five museums: the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, the
Plains Indian Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Buffalo
Bill Museum and the Draper Museum of Natural History. It ranks
among the finest museum complexes of its kind in the United
States. Visitors can easily spend a day in the huge complex,
which is considerably less crowded during the winter months
when

Advertisement

hotel and motel
rates also drop.
Still, unlike many
tourist towns, many of the unique art galleries, Western
shops, bars and restaurants in Cody stay open in the winter.

For example, the Hotel Irma, which
Buffalo Bill Cody named for his daughter, offers a great
weekend prime rib buffet in a dining room where visitors can
stare at the carved tin ceiling and a priceless cherry wood
bar England's Queen Victoria had made in France and shipped to
Cody.
Wade has plenty more to show
visitors, including the Cody Rodeo Grounds and Trailtown, a
Western-themed living-history street filled with many original
buildings from town - both closed during winter - as well as
the nearby South and North forks of the Shoshone River.

She is proud of the "firsts" in the
area, including Yellowstone, the world's first national park;
Shoshone National Forest, the first organized by the U.S.
Forest Service; and the Buffalo Bill Dam, built in 1910 as the
first Bureau of Reclamation project.

Wade, whose husband, Tim, is a
well-known fly-fishing guide, helped coin "the quiet season"
to describe Cody, which hosts some 1 million tourists a year,
at this cold and snowy time of the year.

It more than fits the off-season, from
mid-October to May 1, when the east entrance to Yellowstone
reopens to automobile traffic.
---

Contact Tom Wharton at
[email-masked]. His phone number is 801-257-8909.
Send comments to livingeditor@ sltrib.com.

Cody, Wyo.

WHY GO? Cody is in the heart of some of
the most beautiful mountain country in North America and is 53
miles from Yellowstone National Park's east entrance. It can
serve as the base for wildlife watching, skiing, snowmobiling,
ice climbing and summer hiking, rodeos and horseback riding.
Its historic downtown has several art galleries, family
restaurants and Western stores.

HOW TO GET THERE: Wasatch Front
residents can fly via Sky West Airlines to Cody, with
twice-daily service from Salt Lake City International Airport.
Rental cars are usually plentiful. Cody, in northwestern
Wyoming, is about a day's drive from Salt Lake City. When
Yellowstone Park is open to automobile traffic May 1 to Oct.
1, Utahns can reach Cody by driving to West Yellowstone and
then through the park and its east entrance. In the winter,
drive north through Riverton, Wyo.

WHAT IT WILL COST: Off-season motel and
hotel rates in Cody run from $50 to $80 a night. Expect to pay
between $65 and $120 for the same room in the summer. Food
prices vary from franchises and family restaurants to more
pricey places specializing in prime rib.

NOT TO MISS: The
300,000-square-foot Buffalo Bill Historical Center offers one
of the best museum experiences in the West. It contains five
museums: the Buffalo Bill Museum, Plains Indian Museum,
Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody Firearms Museum and
Draper Museum of Natural History.

WHERE TO EAT: Experience the dining
room at the Hotel Irma, founded by Buffalo Bill and named
after his daughter. The prime rib is good. But the atmosphere,
which includes numerous historic photographs as well as a
priceless cherry wood bar sent to Buffalo Bill as a thank you
from England's Queen Victoria, is a wonderful Western
experience.

WEATHER: Cody can be cold in the winter, with the average
January temperature of 24 degrees. Expect sunshine about 300
days a year. The average July temperature is 72 and highs can
sometimes reach the 90s.

FOR INFO: For information on Cody, call
800-393-2639 or log onto http://www.pctc.org. For information
on lodging in Yellowstone Park, contact Xanterra Parks and
Resorts at http://www.TravelYellowstone.com. For information
on summer and winter educational programs offered by the
Yellowstone Association, call 307-344-2293 or visit
http://www.yellowstone
association.org.

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