Rough Trip Through Yellowstone

In the winter of 1894, the magazine Forest and Streamsent one of its most talented writers, Emerson Hough, to Yellowstone National Park to document the decline in bison. Under the tutelage of legendary guide Billy Hofer, Hough learned to ski on 12-foot-long wooden slats. He witnessed the arrest of notorious poacher Ed Howell—caught red-handed skinning a bison—and met pioneering photographer F. Jay Haynes.

Undertaking a tough, 200-mile trip on skis, Hough, Haines and Hofer came up with the be...