A Ski on the Bighorn Pass Trail in Yellowstone National Park

On Thursday morning, I had my usual writing time with my sabbatical buddy, Tom Meyer, a writing project director at SUNY-New Paltz, and then Enrico and I checked out of our West Yellowstone hotel and began the drive back to Bozeman. We stopped at the pullout for Bighorn Pass and went for one more ski. This turned out to be the most magnificent ski of our trip. It was perfect spring crust skiing conditions, with warm temperatures, and an occasional wind that kept us from getting too hot. We skied up a flat creek bed, but found we could go anywhere with the still-frozen crust, so we ventured into the undulating hills on the sides of the creek drainage and into some forested areas. The day was mostly sunny and the valley was absolutely beautiful. As we rounded one of the twists in the valley, we saw a brown animal in the snow ahead. It turned out to be a bison.

It was a sublime experience—we skied around for about three hours and were very reluctant to leave this beautiful place. What a perfect last ski of this winter season!