Winter Is a Time of Cold, Comfort for Wyoming Family

Although this Sunday morning is warmer than most--a thermometer on a wooden post outside the kitchen window reads 5 degrees Fahrenheit--the Hemingway children pull on three snowsuits and three pairs of mittens apiece.

The two boys are dressed in their Sunday best. Philip, 10, pulls a snowsuit over his white button-down shirt, bow tie and black slacks. Then he adds more layers: another snowsuit, a winter coat, gaiters, a face mask and, finally, a snowmobile helmet. Nathaniel, 8, has a blue blazer under his winter garb.

The three girls, Loretta, Andrea and Elizabeth, forgo their Sunday dresses because the snowmobile ride to church is too cold. Says Loretta: “That’s the thing I like about winter: You don’t have to wear dresses.”

Instead, the 11-year-old wears black pants and her favorite purple T-shirt with “Yellowstone” and two grizzlies emblazoned on the front.

By the time the kids are dressed, they have so many layers on that their mother, Monica, asks them to wait in the cool entryway so they will not overheat. She finishes packing food and a thermos of hot water into a cooler, which prevents the items from freezing. The children’s father, Mark, is outside warming up the snowmobiles.

Just before 7 a.m. everyone is ready to go. Monica Hemingway mounts one snow machine with Andrea, 6, in front and Loretta in back. On the second machine, the youngest, 3-year-old Elizabeth, rides up front, closest to the windshield where it’s warmest. Then comes Nathaniel, Mark, Philip and a trailer in tow.

Thus the Hemingways begin a 23-mile ride from their home in Grant Village to Flagg Ranch, just south of the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. It is the first leg of their weekly journey from the park’s interior to Sunday church services in Jackson.

When the Hemingways first moved to Grant Village, on the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, the seven-member family increased the wintering population by 50%. Counting the Hemingways, the village is home to 21 Yellowstone employees and their families this winter.

A quick tour of Grant Village takes less than 20 minutes, via snowmobile, and reveals that the grocery store, restaurant, campground, gas station and visitor center are all boarded up.

In summer, Grant Village’s population balloons to more than 1,000 with 500-plus campers, seasonal workers and park employees. In winter, those services shut down and only park employees and their families live here. In winter, the rangers patrol snowmobile trails and staff a warming hut at West Thumb while maintenance workers take care of the utilities, buildings and groomed trails.

The National Park Service warns prospective employees that Grant Village is an “isolated post” with no school, medical services, grocery store or entertainment. The mail arrives twice a week, and roads are not plowed from November to April.

Moreover, Grant Village typically has some of the coldest temperatures--weeklong bouts of 40 below zero--and some of the heaviest snowfall in the park, according to employees who live here.

Some village residents speculated that the Hemingways, with their large family and lack of experience living in a cold climate, would not last at the remote post.

“Initially we thought, ‘Oh boy, how is that going to work?’ ” recalls Mary Wilson, a district ranger for interpretation, who lives here with her two cats.

Acknowledges Monica Hemingway: “We had never really dealt quite so much with the cold.”

Although Mark and Monica grew up with snow--he in Maine and she in Ohio--they had been living in San Antonio for the last 15 years. The kids had never seen snow. And the family had never tried skiing.

But Mark and Monica both wanted to escape the Texas heat and move closer to relatives in the Northeast. Monica jokes that they went north but not east.

Mark, who worked maintenance for the U.S. military, was looking for jobs on the Internet when he found the listing for Grant Village.

“We were ready to move. I think that was probably the biggest calling card,” Monica says. “We knew there would be seasons here.”

They visited the park in September 1998 and accepted the job a month later.

“We literally left in shorts and got here Oct. 26,” Monica recalls. Mark’s relatives in Maine sent boxes of winter clothing to help the family get started.

Now in their third winter, the Hemingways have impressed fellow villagers with their ability to adapt. Some neighbors attribute the Hemingways’ success to being a large, close-knit family that takes care of its own needs, from schooling to entertainment.

Says Wilson: “If you’re not a real self-starter and you’re not good at entertaining yourself, it doesn’t work.”

The Hemingways have surprised parishioners at the Community Bible Church in Jackson by making the 83-mile trip to church most Sundays.

“They’re very faithful, except when it’s very cold,” said Brenda Sherwin, a fellow church member.

The family had to limit Sunday outings to mornings no colder than 10 below zero, for safety reasons, Monica Hemingway says. This winter, however, temperatures have been so consistently cold that she fudged the rule one morning, heading to church when it was 15 below.

Being cooped up for weeks can be difficult, Monica says. “I do feel like getting out would be good for my spirit. Sunday is a wonderful way not only to get fellowship but also [to] hear God’s word. . . . “

Mark Hemingway always carries a park radio in case of an emergency.

On the Hemingways’ recent Sunday outing, the day is particularly warm--the official report is 2 below, although the family’s thermometer reads 5 above. As they leave Grant Village, the sunrise paints clouds on the horizon a fluorescent pink.

Mark and Monica stop at Lewis Falls, the halfway point, where they make the kids get off the snowmobiles and walk a short distance to keep their blood circulating so they stay warm.

From here the snowmobiles climb above the narrow Lewis River canyon. Trees killed by the wildfires of 1988 stick up like gray spikes across the white slopes. The sun breaks over snowcapped peaks on the eastern horizon, and beside the trail, snow crystals twinkle like stars in the morning light.

The trail then descends into a corridor of thick, towering conifers, untouched by the fires. The Hemingways pass through Yellowstone’s South Entrance and arrive at Flagg Ranch, where they swap the snowmobiles for a white Dodge Ram van.

Inside the van, the kids peel away snowsuits. The girls grab the thermos of hot water from the cooler to make cocoa and tea as the family begins the second leg of the journey--a 61-mile road trip to Jackson.

The highway between Flagg Ranch and Moran is covered with ice patches and constricted to barely two lanes by a snowmobile trail that runs alongside it.

The Hemingways finally arrive at church about 9:20 a.m., almost 2 1/2 hours after leaving home. Monica slips into the church kitchen to put ingredients for turkey noodle soup into a Crockpot to cook during the morning services.

Once services let out at noon, the family invites fellow church members to join them for a bowl of Monica Hemingway’s soup. After lunch, they pile back into the van to retrace their long journey home.

For Mark and Monica, the trip is worth it.

Mark says he appreciates the slower pace. “We don’t look at it as a hardship. I guess it’s kind of exciting, challenging.”

And the lifestyle is better for their family, they say.

Says Monica: “This place allows for a family togetherness that you will not get if we move somewhere else, if you have the other distractions of life.”

Monica, who has a master’s degree in nutrition, already home-schooled her children, so she and Mark did not worry about a lack of schools.

The basement of their split-level home serves as a classroom. Five desks are lined up in two neat rows, facing a dry-erase board. Against one wall, an American flag sits atop an enormous bookcase stocked with junior encyclopedias and children’s books.

The Hemingways have embraced winter sports, borrowing gear from neighbors and eventually acquiring their own.

“I had never been on skis in my life,” Monica Hemingway says. “I enjoy it more than I ever thought I would.”