Wyoming’s Brooks Lake Lodge Surrounded By 700 Miles Of World-Class Snowmobiling

Editor's Note: Business & Tourism reporter Renee Jean spent a few days at Wyoming's Brooks Lake Lodge earlier this month as part of her On The Road With Renee series. This is her third story from the resort.

Even beginning snowmobilers can discover the magical attraction this winter sport has on avid sled heads at Wyoming’s exclusive Brooks Lake Lodge.

How can they not?

Not only are there expert guides at their beck and call to help them find their way, but the setting is more than spectacular. It draws the eye, making beginners forget — in spite of themselves — that they are, in fact, beginners.

That spectacular scenery is thanks to the lodge’s prime location sandwiched between two wildernesses. On the one side is the Shoshone National Forest. And on the other, the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Mountains, meanwhile, are all around, framing the skies with craggy, interesting shapes everywhere one looks. There’s the Absarokas, the Wind River Range and, for good measure, the Continental Divide just 1 mile away, meaning that no matter where you are at Brooks Lake Lodge near Dubois, a mountain — and an adventure — is somewhere within view.

These mountains blot out the usual satellite signals that keep cellphones — and ourselves — connected to the alarm bells of the modern world. Without those signals coming in all the time, guests are free to treat their cellphones as bricks for a little while.

They might be useful for snapping a quick photo now and then. But that is about all they are good for while you’re out snowmobiling or snowshoeing in the wilderness, whichever is your preferred speed.

A Hallmark Snow Globe

It doesn’t take long to feel like you’ve stumbled into a Hallmark snow globe at Brooks Lake Lodge.

The staff ratio at Brooks Lake is nearly one-to-one, and the staff are all helpful and happy.

Here, guests are the heroes of their own, self-chosen adventures, whatever those might be.

Guides are available for activities like ice fishing, snow tubing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling. Or guests can hang out at the lodge and read a book, soak in the outdoor hot tub, get massages at the spa. It’s whatever you decide.

Not without reason, snowmobiling is the top choice for most guests. Brooks Lake Lodge has gone all out in making the most of its access to a first-class snowmobiling experience that attracts people from around the world.

The lodge provides snowsuits, gloves and boots in a range of sizes. People arriving from warm locales like Florida and California have no worries on what to bring. A good jacket is recommended, of course, but that’s it.

The lodge also has a fleet of high-performance snowmobiles equal to the number of guests at any one time. Guests may bring their own sleds if they prefer, but it’s not required.

With the one-to-one staff ratio, there are plenty of guides for all levels of expertise and any type of ride, leisurely or fast.

You decide.

More Than 700 Miles Of Trail

With more than 700 miles of groomed trails, and acres of secluded wilderness to explore, fresh powder is everywhere to be found at Brooks Lake Lodge.

The trails, however, are so remote from the modern world that the sound of automobiles is never heard, and even the sound of fellow snowmobilers can be somewhat rare.

There’s plenty of space to spread out far from the madding world, and every mad person in it.

Kill the snowmobile engine on the trail, and what you’ll hear is wind whispering through snow-laden lodgepole pines as they sag beneath the weight of new-fallen snow.

Occasionally, the snow on those limbs reaches a tipping point, and suddenly the rider is blowing through a veil of glittering snow.

The first time that happens it’s honestly magic, like pixie dust. The eye is suddenly fastened on the natural world by the glittering sparks of fairy snow, then drawn inexorably to the craggy mountains beyond the frosty veil.

Those mountains are perpetually just ahead, framed at every turn by dark, almost fluffy clouds of lodgepole pine boughs.

In that moment, all the beginner’s awkwardness vanishes. Things begin to gel. The turns suddenly feel more natural. The anxious grip becomes comfortably firm.

Here, there’s just wind and snow, trees and mountains, a person and her ride.

It’s an immersive experience like no other.

“The mountains here, they have something about them,” Brooks Lake Lodge guide Max Hernandez told Cowboy State Daily during one afternoon snowmobile trek. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something special.”

Even Icelanders Covet Wyoming Snowmobiling

That something special has made Brooks Lake Lodge one of the world’s top-rated snowmobiling resorts. People come from all over the world to stay at the lodge, many of them repeat visitors, according to Brooks Lake Lodge General Manager Matthew Tousignant.

On TripAdvisor, review after review mentions repeat visitors, including a group from Iceland that comes every year for extreme snowmobiling in the backcountry.

Tousignant estimates between 7,000 and 10,000 snowmobilers pass through Brooks Lake Lodge in a single season, whether to stay for a few nights at the resort or to try the daily lunch specials from 11:30 to 2 p.m. in the lodge’s ample fireside dining hall.

The lunch is as epic as the snowmobiling, with hearty sandwiches and salads, as well as an Instagram-worthy bloody mary that is lunch in and of itself.

Lunch for members of the public not staying at the lodge is available only to those who can snowmobile, ski or snowshoe their own way in.

The 5-mile, 1,000-foot elevation gain trail that leads to the lodge is inaccessible to motor vehicles in winter, and the lodge’s snow coach is strictly for picking up its guests.

The Perfect Snow

One of the reasons Brooks Lake Lodge is so highly prized by snowmobilers is the snow itself, Tousignant said.

At 9,200 feet of elevation, Tousigant said the snow in the area is “always very low in moisture, creating that light, fluffy powder that people dream of.”

As he’s speaking, he pinches his fingers together, as if simulating powdered sugar falling from the sky.

Brooks Lake Lodge doesn’t get its perfectly fluffy dry snow every once in a while, either. It gets as much as 600 inches of it in a single season.

Even in a low-snow year like this one, the lodge seemed to perpetually have between 6 and 12 inches of new snow on the roof — despite having a crew that shovels it off every day. Paths cut through the snow, meanwhile, were often walled by a generous 1 to 2 feet of snow.

And that abundant and perfect snow is falling on a truly spectacular setting, one that Tousignant believes is the prettiest, most dramatic in all of the Cowboy State.

“Some might say that’s debatable,” he said. “But I think we have it.”

With so much fluffy, dry powder falling every day in the area, that means guests who broke powder one day can wake to a new, snowy world the next, one that has laid down even more fresh powder for them to try. In fact, snowstorms can often be seen in the distance, even as snowmobilers, skiers and snowshoers are breaking through on their journeys.

That makes it seem, just like those mountains that are perpetually ahead, that never-ending adventure always awaits in the Brooks Lake Lodge snow globe — if only one never had to leave for home.

Renee Jean can be reached at: Renee@CowboyStateDaily.com