Quick Details
Spend full days immersed in Yellowstone’s wildlife-rich Lamar Valley and Northern Range, highly revered as the very best place on Earth to see wild wolves. In the evenings, enjoy a hearty dinner, relax in the comfort of your cozy room at a locally owned and operated motel, and listen to a local biologist, author, expert naturalist, or filmmaker who will join us as a guest speaker. This tour is a visually stunning adventure through the pristine beauty of Yellowstone landscapes – towering peaks and sweeping valleys, blanketed by soft winter snow.
Each day provides new possibilities to see multiple wolf packs, frosty bison, long-legged moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, otters, foxes, coyotes, eagles, owls and more. Your tour will also be highly educational, as we highlight the monumental reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, the complexities of wolf social behaviors, wolves’ specialized hunting strategies and their ecological impacts on the Yellowstone ecosystem. We will explore how these factors, and others, have captured the human imagination for centuries, and over time have characterized the wolf as the ultimate icon of Wilderness.
The deep snows of winter have pushed Yellowstone’s iconic wildlife down out of the mountains and onto the wintering grounds of the Lamar Valley and the Northern Range. Thousands of elk and bison, along with moose, big horn sheep, white-tailed and mule deer and pronghorn have filtered out of the higher mountains of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and have concentrated in the lower valleys and grasslands where there is less snow and less extreme temperatures. Winter can be tough on these grazing animals, and partially because of that, this is where Yellowstone’s wolves and other carnivores thrive. Come and explore the unparalleled beauty and wildlife watching opportunities of Yellowstone National Park with experienced local naturalist guides during the most beautiful and dramatic time of the year: winter. Winter is the season of the wolves, and wolves are our specialty.
This all-inclusive tour package is the ultimate way to experience the wild magic of Yellowstone National Park. Breakfasts and lunches are provided by a locally owned eatery and enjoyed picnic-style out in the park, overlooking one of our favorite vistas in Yellowstone. After a full day experiencing the wonders of Yellowstone’s Northern Range, you will be treated to evenings with your group enjoying evening presentation by a local wildlife biologist, naturalist, and/or storyteller to discover insider insights into the lives, behaviors, and ecology of the wildlife that call Yellowstone home. One dinner will be enjoyed at the delightful Wonderland Cafe, a boutique gallery style local eatery, while remaining evening meals will be privately catered for our group only.
In order for this package to operate, there is a minimum total enrollment of 4 participants
Winter 2024-2025 trips are scheduled for the following dates:
Day 1: Sunday – Arrive in Bozeman, MT. at your leisure
Free shuttle to Best Western GranTree in Bozeman, MT. Dinner is on your own. There is a restaurant on site.
Day 2: Monday– Meet guide for transfer to Gardiner and afternoon exploring Mammoth Hot Springs
Breakfast on your own. (We recommend you eat early or wait until lunch with the group around 11:30 a.m.). Your Naturalist Guide will pick you up at 10 a.m. for a leisurely transfer to Gardiner, MT, with a stop for lunch at the popular Old Saloon in Emigrant, MT. After lunch you will continue to Gardiner where you will then head into the park for an afternoon exploring the magnificent Mammoth Hot Springs terraces. You’ll check into your lodging around 4:30 to 5 pm. Day 2 will include a private, catered dinner with your guide as you get to know each other and learn more about what’s to come in the following days.
Days 3-5: Wolf & Wildlife Watching on the Northern Range
Your instructor will pick you up each day at 6:00-6:30 a.m. (exact time dependent on dates) to venture out in search of wildlife on the Northern Range. These days focus on viewing and learning about wolves, elk, bison, moose, bighorn sheep, coyotes, foxes, river otters, winter songbirds, birds of prey, and as many other species as possible. Each day begins before the sun rises, increasing the possibility for observing wolves in action at their most active time. Breakfast, lunch, snacks, and a variety of hot beverages will be enjoyed in the field throughout the day. Each afternoon you’ll return to your lodge between 2:30 t0 3:30 pm.
Day 6: Friday – Transfer back to Bozeman – Package concludes
Your guide will pick you up at 7:30 a.m. to enjoy breakfast together at a local restaurant before transferring the group back to Bozeman, where our package come to an end. Due to possible adverse weather conditions during this travel day, we ask that you DO NOT book flights out of Bozeman/Yellowstone International Airport any earlier than 12:30 p.m.
In order to reserve your tour, a deposit in the amount of 30% of the package total is due at the time of booking. The balance due will be charged to the card on file 45 days prior to your tour start date.
Should you need to cancel your tour with us more than 46 days prior to your tour departure date, your deposit is fully refundable minus a $200.00 service fee.
Should you need to cancel your tour within 45 days of your tour departure date, your payment is non-refundable.
We regret that as a small business, we are rarely able to make exceptions to our cancellation policy.
We reserve the right to cancel the trip if minimum enrollment of 4 guests is not met by 30 days prior to the trip departure date, or due to extreme weather conditions or other factors that are outside of our control. Full refund of your Yellowstone Wild package price is given if this occurs. Yellowstone Wild is not liable for reimbursement of travel-related expenses such as airfare, car rentals, or other incidentals.
We strongly recommend you purchase third-party travel insurance that will protect you in case of unforeseen cancellations or changes to your travel plans (for suggested travel insurance companies, use the following link for highly-rated options): [Forbes Advisor]
Here are our suggestions and what our guides wear on winter tours:
Boots:
There are several ways you can go for boots: the insulated rubber “muck” boots that farmers and ranchers like. These are slip on boots that come in varying levels of insulation (up to -50 degrees). They are fine for short walks, but you would not want them for full-day hikes. For the purpose of this trip, they would be fine. Good brands there are Muck and LaCrosse. These are probably the best bang for your buck.
https://www.muckbootcompany.com/collections/arctic-ice/audience_men
The other option is a lace up insulated boot. There are lots of them on the market and you could spend a lot for a boot that you may never use again.
Here is a link with discussion about boots recommended for Antarctica tours. https://www.coolantarctica.com/Shop/antarctica-clothing/antarctic-boots.php
If you need to order boots, you could have them shipped here, and we will have them on hand for you when you arrive, not a problem at all. Just let us know.
Yellowstone National Park is a very large place divided by mountain ranges, deep valleys and a massive lake. The weather within the 2.2 million acres can vary widely, so checking the weather in the park can be a difficult task. We recommend checking several different NOAA weather stations around the park, and working an average of those if you’re planning to travel around the entirety of the park.
It is important to remember that the wild animals we seek to observe are exactly that, WILD free-ranging animals that can roam across all of Yellowstone’s vast and rugged 2.2 million acres. The probability of locating and observing them is greatly elevated due to your guide’s intimate personal familiarity with the landscape and the animals themselves. We do not guarantee any wildlife sightings on our tours; however, we will guarantee that your guide will use their knowledge, skills, and network of other guides, wildlife watchers and photographers to do everything we can to find you the animals you’d like to see. We are in the park nearly every day searching for and watching wildlife, and that consistent experience pays off in finding the animals you’ve traveled to see.
As a licensed Commercial Use Permit holder with Yellowstone National Park, we must follow all park rules and regulations. Additionally, as life-long proponents of wildlife and wild places, we will also follow our own ethical wildlife viewing practices. We will take this opportunity to teach you about how we can have the very best viewing and photography opportunities possible without having negative impacts on wildlife by respecting the animals’ space and movements as they go about their lives.
While on tour with Yellowstone Wild LLC, we will observe the following park rules (subject to law
enforcement):
It is our ethical responsibility as visitors to the park to make sure that our actions do not inflict undue stress or hardship upon the animals that we are observing. Wild animals in a natural setting do not have easy lives, and the last thing we want to do is make their lives any more difficult. Your guide is an expert at reading animal behavior, and the moment that our presence is bothering an animal, we MUST back off until we are no longer disturbing its natural behavior. Failure to promptly respond to your guide’s instructions to back away from wildlife may result in the termination of your tour, subject to the discretion of your guide.
This is where our optics prove invaluable. We use only the finest quality Swarovski and Vortex spotting scopes so that we can thoroughly enjoy our wildlife sightings at a distance that allows the animals to carry on about their business, as if we were not there. In fact, much of the time they probably don’t know we are there, yet our high powered and crystal clear optics give us an up-close and personal view. Furthermore, we must be mindful of any animal feeding on or resting near a carcass. Approaching such an area may drive the animal(s) away and deprive them of valuable food. It is important to remember that a carcass is regularly scavenged upon by any number of other animals, including grizzly bears, who will violently defend such a food source. Approaching such an area is strictly prohibited and can seriously put people and wildlife in danger. Finally, it is important to be mindful of the other park visitors and biologists who may also be observing the same animals. We promote quiet, respectful behavior to maximize everyone’s wild Yellowstone experience.
Still have questions? Check out our FAQ’s page!