Afternoon: Check-in from 4-5 pm in hotel Conference Room

Dinner: Dinner served at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel Dining Room

Evening: Welcome, Introductions and Orientation in Conference Room Optional: "Music and Yellowstone"

Lodging: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel

Meals Included: Dinner

Yellowstone overview, Mammoth Terraces walk; Albright Visitor Center and Museum visit, evening presentation

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet in hotel dining room

Morning: Overview of Yellowstone National Park may include cultural history, geology, biology, human history, wildlife and/or hydrothermal activity.

Lunch: Lunch served in hotel dining room

Afternoon: Walk the Mammoth Hot Springs spectacular travertine terraces (boardwalk and path include several hundred stair steps downhill, may be snow-packed). Visit the Albright Visitor Center and Museum, built by the US cavalry during "Fort Yellowstone" times, which includes history-themed exhibits-Native Americans, mountain men, early exploration, Army days and early National Park Service. Also included: predator-prey themed exhibit, Moran Gallery (reproductions of Thomas Moran watercolors), Jackson Gallery (original William Henry Jackson photographs and 1871 Hayden Survey photographs), theater, information desk and Yellowstone Association sales area (good selection of Yellowstone-related books, also prints, notecards, games, films, photographs, maps, etc.)

Dinner: Dinner served in hotel dining room

Evening: Wildlife in Winter

Lodging: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Travel by snowcoach into the Heart of Yellowstone to Old Faithful; watch for bison, elk, waterfowl

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet in hotel dining room

Morning: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel check-out. All aboard snow coaches for a journey through Yellowstone's winter-white world. Coach from the Mammoth area up through the Hoodoos and Golden Gate to Swan Flats, then via Obsidian Cliffs and Roaring Mountain to the Norris Geyser Basin area, Yellowstone's most thermally active region. Turn south at Madison Junction; here, Gibbon and Firehole Rivers join to form the grand, Madison River, a headwater of the mighty Missouri. Have cameras at hand, ready for wildlife and winter beauty.

Lunch: Picnic in the Park, sack lunches

Afternoon: Continue over the snow to Firehole River Canyon then among forest and open park to the steaming, sulfur-scented, beautifully colored, Fountain Paint Pots area. Carry on into Upper Geyser Basin and your destination, the Heart of Yellowstone, Old Faithful. Check in at Old Faithful Snow Lodge.

Dinner: Dinner at the Snow Lodge Dining Room

Evening: Free evening

Lodging: Old Faithful Snow Lodge

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Snowcoach Yellowstone's historic Lower Loop among a grand, snowclad landscape; then back to Old Faithful for Auld Lang Syne

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet in Snow Lodge dining room

Morning: Board snow coaches for exploration along the "Lower Loop" via winter wonderland. Bring binoculars and camera. Plan on a grand landscape of steaming geyser basins, meadow and forest. You'll see bison, elk, wintering waterfowl, raven and coyote.

Lunch: Sack lunches along the "Loop"

Afternoon: The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone seems even more awesome during winter. Appreciate the mighty Upper and Lower Falls and beautifully tinted canyon walls. One is wonderstruck and speechless with earth's winter beauty.

Dinner: Dinner back at the Snow Lodge dining room

Evening: National Park Service presentation; later that evening wrap up in coat, hat and mittens to usher in the New Year with Old Faithful, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Lodging: Old Faithful Snow Lodge

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Walk the Upper Geyser Basin at Old Faithful for hot springs, mudpots, geysers and fumaroles then board snowcoaches for over the snow adventure back to Mammoth Hot Springs through winter's wonderland; look sharp for wildlife

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet in the Snow Lodge dining room

Morning: Old Faithful Snow Lodge check out. Naturalist-led exploration of the Upper Geyser Basin; appreciate all four thermal features - hot springs, mudpots, geysers and fumaroles (steam vents). Another golden day to put cameras and binoculars to good use.

Lunch: Lunch at Old Faithful Snow Lodge

Afternoon: Board snow coaches for an unforgettable voyage back to the Mammoth area via steaming, pungent Midway and Lower Geyser Basins. Ahead, your snowcoach trail flanks pristine Gibbon River to Gibbon Falls and northward. Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel check in.

Dinner: Dinner served in hotel dining room

Evening: Presentation provided by Yellowstone National Park Service personnel.

Lodging: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast in hotel dining room

Morning: Field trip by motorcoach into Yellowstone's northern range to view and learn about this vital habitat. Naturalist discusses natural history of area wildlife including predation, winter range, populations, reintroduction, current issues. Bring binoculars to observe wildlife that may include bison, elk, wintering waterfowl, bald and golden eagles, bighorn sheep. The possibility of seeing wolves exists; however, sightings cannot be guaranteed.

Lunch: Sack lunches in the Lamar Valley or lunch in Cooke City

Afternoon: Depending on winter road and weather conditions, travel may extend on through the northern range to the Cooke City area. The road from Gardiner (Yellowstone's NW entrance) to Cooke City (Yellowstone's NE entrance) is 52 miles and is the only road open to wheeled vehicles during the winter. In winter time, the road ends at Cooke City as 10,947' Bearthooth Pass - between Cooke City and Red Lodge, MT is closed. Until 1882, the town and the land around it were within the Crow Reservation. Following numerous skirmishes between the Crow and gold miners the reservation boundary was moved east. Prospectors often accompanied soldiers through Indian lands looking for gold. Gold was found nearby in the early 1870's and the area became known as the New World Mining district. The town was called Shoo-fly until 1880 when it became known as Cooke City, named after a mining investor named Jay Cooke Jr. Cooke promised to use his considerable influence to bring the railroad through the top of Yellowstone Park from Gardiner. This single move would have made the mining much more profitable in the Cooke area. Congress soon put an end to the possibility; Cooke ran into financial difficulty and lost his bonded mining claims.

Dinner: Dinner in hotel dining room

Evening: Wrap-up and closing. Optional presentation.

Lodging: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet in hotel dining room

Morning: Airport group shuttle departs at 8 am.

Meals Included: Breakfast