Rendezvous Ski Trails in November: Passes and Festival Guide
A carved wooden arch at the Rendezvous trailhead reads "Welcome to the Rendezvous Ski Trails." Beneath it each fall, a smaller sign carries a message that has nothing to do with the rest of winter. It says November passes are required.
That sign marks the line between two different seasons on the same trails. From November 1 through November 30, the Rendezvous system southwest of town runs on its own pass, with the money going straight back to the trails. On December 1 the U.S. Forest Service takes over pass sales for the regular season. A household that bought a family season pass last winter has nothing that covers this month. The skiers filling the trailhead lot over Thanksgiving week mostly come from somewhere else and are paying for November.
The Rendezvous trails cover more than 35 kilometers, from gently rolling terrain to harder climbs, descents and turns through lodgepole pine and open meadows below Lionhead Mountain. According to Destination Yellowstone's 2026-2027 Adventure Planner, trail passes are required from November 1 through March 31. But two different systems sell them.
| November 2026 | December 1 to March 31 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sells the pass | Rendezvous Trail System | U.S. Forest Service |
| Single day | $15 | $15 |
| Longer option | $60 for the month | $30 for 3 days, $100 individual season, $190 family season |
| Children | Discounted day rate | Under 12 ski free |
| Where to buy | Freeheel and Wheel, trailhead kiosk | Hebgen Lake Ranger Station, Freeheel and Wheel, trailhead |
The November pass is valid through November 30, 2026. You can buy it at Freeheel and Wheel, 33 Yellowstone Ave, open daily from 9 to 5, or at the trailhead, which has limited hours during festival week. The regular-season passes are on the Forest Service's Rendezvous page, and the Hebgen Lake Ranger Station is at 330 Gallatin Road.
The child rate for November is printed two ways. The trail system's ski pass page says children 10 and under pay half price. The Destination Yellowstone planner lists a $7.50 single-day pass for kids under 12. If you have a child who's 11, ask at the counter at Freeheel and Wheel.
If you ski often, the numbers favor the month pass. At $15 a day, the $60 November pass pays for itself on the fifth outing. The regular season works the same way with different figures: four day passes cost $60, while the individual season pass is $100 for four months.
The ski pass page spells out why November is split off. November passes are "under a different collection system," and that money goes directly to the Rendezvous Trail System for year-round maintenance and setup for the Yellowstone Ski Festival.
Three organizations share the work. The West Yellowstone Ski Education Foundation, known as WYSEF, manages Nordic grooming with its partners and organizes the race events. The Forest Service regulates the National Forest land the trails cross. Destination Yellowstone is the third listed partner. WYSEF says partnered trail workdays usually happen in early summer and early fall to clear downed trees and debris, update signs and maintain the trail buildings.
So a November pass works more like a direct contribution to the people who cleared the deadfall in September. Even clinic participants pay the trail fee on top of registration, either $15 for each clinic day or a November pass.
November needs its own money because November draws its own crowd. "Thanksgiving week in West Yellowstone has belonged to skiers for a long time," the Yellowstone Ski Festival Committee wrote in its 2026 festival preview on FasterSkier. The piece traces the custom back to 1979, when the U.S. Ski Team began bringing coaches to West Yellowstone each November to train them.
The 2025 numbers show how large that crowd gets. In a November 2025 FasterSkier feature, festival organizer Jack Hart described about 100 people in festival instruction. Another couple thousand were training with their own high school or club coaches. The same article described Freeheel and Wheel as a coffee, gear and social hub for visiting skiers, and said local restaurants and bars stayed open for festival week. Those are last year's figures, but the pattern goes back more than four decades.
That's why the trails get busy in a month when most of the region is between seasons. The park road schedule has already wound down the summer traffic. Then a few weeks later, Nordic skiers fill the town.
The 2026 Yellowstone Ski Festival runs November 21 through 28 on the Rendezvous Ski Trails, with skiing every day of the festival. The scheduled clinics and races are packed into the second half, from Tuesday through Saturday. Jack Hart leads the coaching staff, with six to eight skiers per coach grouped by ability, and the coaches rotate through the groups each half day. Here is how the scheduled programming is laid out:
Wax clinics, a mindful movement class and an evening speaker fill out the week. Any clinic with fewer than six skiers registered by November 19 will be canceled. Clinic registration is on the festival clinics page, and race registration will be posted on the races page. The full schedule will be updated as the week gets closer.
Two festival sponsors handle much of the lodging: the Brandin' Iron Inn and the Golden Stone Inn.
The festival program is written with a condition attached. Low snow means modified courses. No snow means races and clinics are canceled, with clinic fees refunded minus a small administrative fee.
Last year shows why. FasterSkier's November 7, 2025 feature quoted Hart describing early skiing up on the plateau in wet conditions, with temperatures in the low 40s and rain up to 7,000 feet, though he expected snow and colder nights to follow. The trail system's races page lists the 2025 5K and 10K fun race as "Canceled" and gives no reason.
This season started differently. The committee's October 19, 2026 release opened with excitement "after our first snow." It said the trail crew had been preparing the trails and looked forward to "welcoming everyone back to regular grooming." No opening date for grooming came with that. The Rendezvous grooming report is the place to check, along with the trail system's Facebook page, @RendezvousSkiTrails, and its Instagram account, @Rendezvousskitrails1.
If the snow is slow, the committee points skiers to roller skiing or biking the road into Yellowstone National Park, and to the nine miles of paved Shortline Trail.
Rendezvous allows no pets. The Destination Yellowstone planner lists another option close by. The Boundary Ski and Snowshoe Trail runs 7.9 kilometers along Yellowstone's western border. It is a no-fee trail, groomed for classic skiing and snowshoeing, and pets are allowed. The planner calls it one of the few pet-friendly trails in Montana.
The Boundary Trail also offers a quieter ski during festival week, when the Rendezvous stadium is busy with biathlon races and a 200-skier mass start. It doesn't need a pass in November or any other month, and the dog can come along.
For more of what the town offers through the year, see Ben's West Yellowstone neighborhood guide and his look at how August works in West Yellowstone.
Ben Coleman has followed West Yellowstone's seasons for more than 24 years, from the October road closures to the Thanksgiving week when Nordic skiers fill the town. If you're curious how the town's winter calendar affects a home here, from rental demand around festival week to what the shoulder months look like, Ben Coleman Realty is happy to talk it through. Contact Ben for a Personal Market Consultation.
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