Fly into Yellowstone's Lamar Valley for a wintertime wolf-watching day trip.
Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley is the best place in the park to see wolves. PHOTO COURTESY OF FOUR SEASONS RESORT AND RESIDENCES JACKSON HOLE
It's likely you'll hear the wolves in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley before you see them. Their howls each have a distinctly different pitch and timbre, not unlike instruments in an orchestra. A French horn, a trumpet, an out-of-tune flute. The pups sound like piccolos. It’s music that will send a prickle up your spine. Actually spotting a wolf will give you full-body goosebumps. “Seeing wolves in the wild is something you’ll remember for the rest of your life,” says Cory Carlson, regional director of marketing for Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole (fourseasons.com/jacksonhole)—and the man behind the hotel’s Day with the Wolves experience.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOUR SEASONS RESORT AND RESIDENCES JACKSON HOLE
Since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995—the species was extirpated from the area by the 1930s—the Lamar Valley, abundant with prey like elk and bison, has offered the best chance for visitors to see wolves in the wild. Until now, it wasn’t feasible to day trip from Jackson Hole to the area in winter, when wolves are most active. The majority of Yellowstone’s roads are closed to cars between November and May; it’s possible to drive, but the Lamar Valley is six hours one-way. It’s less than a one-hour flight, though.
A short flight delivers guests to prime wildlife-watching spots. PHOTO COURTESY OF FOUR SEASONS RESORT AND RESIDENCES JACKSON HOLE
“We started thinking about how we could elevate our wildlife-watching experiences,” Carlson says about conceiving Day with the Wolves, which was offered for the first time last winter. Guests board a Pilatus 8-seat aircraft at Jackson Hole Airport. An hour later—after lots of aerial views of Yellowstone’s most iconic sights, including the Lower Falls, Old Faithful, and Grand Prismatic Spring—a wildlife guide meets the group in Paradise Valley, Montana. It’s then a scenic drive to the Lamar Valley, where it’s likely (though not guaranteed) that wolves will be heard and seen. The day includes a gourmet sit-down lunch in the field. “From taking off at sunrise from the base of the Tetons and getting views of Yellowstone you can’t get from a jet, and then visiting this remote area where wolves live in the wild, it’s not like any other Yellowstone experience,” Carlson says. The wolf-watching experience accommodates groups of up to eight and can be customized with snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, a photography lesson, or lessons in wolf biology or tracking.
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