Around West Yellowstone 

Our first trip up Two Top Mountain
The photos on this page were taken in the National Forest Lands around West Yellowstone, Montana. We would go in and out of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. We both thought we would spend most of our time in the National Park we we were wrong. The forest lands were just as spectacular in a different way. While there weren't any thermal features like the park there were mountains to climb. This day it looked pretty nasty out when we got up the mountain. The sky was dark and it was snowing but it made for a beautiful contrast with the pure white snow.
These were called ghost trees and I had never seen anything like this before. The trees were completely covered in snow to the point you almost couldn't tell they were trees. The trails up the mountain we winding and a lot of fun to drive on. In some places they reduced the speed from 45 MPH to 20 MPH due to the twists in the trail and boy did they get steep.
A little later in the day as we were heading down the mountain it started to clear up a bit. It was at this point that we both knew we had to come up here again if we got a clear day. West Yellowstone bills itself the snowmobile capital of the world and by this time we had realized why. If you want to think snowmobile vacation I just can't see how there could be a more spectacular place. We booked out trip though Yellowstone Vacations and the were wonderful to deal with. If I was around and needed gas and oil they filled it up. We found them to be very accommodating in every way.
We were coming back into Montana from Idaho. As the sky started to clear we could see other mountain ranges off in the distance. Not a clear view but we knew they were out there. You could see enough to make you want to see it again. Every turn we went around we would slow down and just look in awe at the fabulous views.
This is one of the meadows where we played. We took turns watching the other one blast up and down the hill or across some jumps that aren't show here. It was great fun to just go full speed and over a mogul and go airborne. The sled we had would reach a top speed of about 60 MPH. I know there are sleds a lot faster but we rented a touring sled for comfort riding 2 up. This day it was pretty warm on the mountain probably in the mid twenties. The next time we were up here it was a balmy 0.