I slept in until the oh so glorious hour of 7am. Wait, what’s that? 7am? I must be getting up too early on a regular basis.

In keeping with a leisurely morning, sneaking into the Old Faithful Inn for a shower was in the cards, followed by a buffet breakfast (Hey, I ran out of pop tarts a few days ago and dried knock-off Cheerios were getting old.)

There were a couple places left in Yellowstone that I wanted to see, mainly because they were on the way to a couple waterfalls, and we all know how much I love taking photos of waterfalls. So, I started my morning by finding a couple of elk carcasses that were pretty well chewed up alongside the road to my first stop. Yeah, I have pictures, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to make the carcasses look… interesting. Sure, they were cool to see, but how do I translate that into a photograph? Perhaps I should have grabbed my 50mm f/1.8 lens and used a narrow depth of field to capture just parts of the carcass at a time; I’ll have to stop by and see if it’s still there on my way to Glacier.

Not a whole lot going on the rest of the day; geysers, mud pots, fumaroles, hot springs, canyons and waterfalls. There is one thing that stuck with me though. Almost everyone has probably seen the Discovery Channel’s (or maybe it’s one of the other “educational” channels’) show on how Yellowstone is a super-volcano that could blow up at any time and destroy the world as we know it. I’ve always thought, “What a bunch of bunk; no way it could happen, especially not without warning.” I’ve begun to take the concept a little more seriously since spending a few days in the park.

Now, hear me out before you call me loony. A good portion of Yellowstone is actually the caldera of a volcano (you know, the part at the top of the cone that the lava always spews from in the movies). Not only that, but it’s active. Seriously, it is. You can’t really appreciate that fact until you visit Yellowstone; when you’re walking along and all of a sudden you pass a hole in the ground which is venting steam and hissing like a punctured cylinder of propane. And that’s sitting next to a hole in the ground that’s spewing 4,000 gallons of steaming water a minute into one of the nearby rivers. Now, picture yourself in a field full of these types of features. It brings the scenario home, that’s for sure.

A number of the Yellowstone features were created when earthquakes struck the area. Geysers that had died came back to life, new mudpots formed, other features stopped erupting. What happens if an earthquake hits and causes the perfect storm of events that leads to an eruption? Features that currently vent pressure have their “plumbing” turned off. That pressure has to go somewhere.

Anyways, that was my big thought for the day. My afternoon wasn’t too exciting, some laundry, some shopping (I picked up a bottle of Moose Drool Beer as a souvenir). And this evening I headed back south to the Tetons in order to find my sunrise spot. Right now, I’m camped out in the back of my Jeep in an area I’m probably not supposed to be because I don’t want to pay $20 for a spot of land large enough to pitch my tent on; though I might tomorrow night just so I can shower.

Plans for tomorrow: sunrise shots, I’ve got two locations planned and a nike around Lake Jenny.

Travel Distance: 150 miles

Well, for the first time since the Badlands at the beginning of my trip I’ve managed to get sunburned. It was entirely my fault today, I went for a hike around 11am and forgot to put sunscreen on first. My arms and legs are a nice rosy shade of red that should fade within a couple days. At least it will keep me warm at night though. Gotta look at the bright side, eh?

I went for a sunrise stroll through the geysers that are near Old Faithful; something on the order of 4 miles or so of trails (though that number includes a good bit of ground I covered twice so I could get back to my car. I managed to get the perfect shot that was in my head when I set out this morning; sunlight streaming through the steam of a geyser silhouetting a tree. With that mission accomplished, I showered for the first time in 3 days. (Don’t worry, I’ve been taking what the army refers to as “field showers.” Think, Wet Naps.)

Looking at my map, I realized I wasn’t too far from Mystic Falls. So, I drove the couple miles to its trailhead at Biscuit Basin and followed the trail, heading for the overlook first. (Of course, my hike involved switchbacks and several hundred feet of elevation gain, but what else is new?) Talk about a waste of time and energy. The overlook is probably at least half a mile away from the falls, and it took me a couple minutes to even figure out where the falls were. Not my idea of an overlook.

So, I humped it back down the hill (bigger than most hills we have in Michigan) and made my way to the falls, where I could take some proper pictures. Of course, by this point, the sun wasn’t cooperating, but I’ve learned to take it as it comes.

When I was hiking through the geyser area this morning, I noticed a sign saying that Riverside Geyser was due to erupt in the early afternoon. I had no idea how big it would be, but the structure of the geyser was interesting and it’s location along the river nearly idyllic, so after grabbing a liter of water (something I forgot on my earlier hike) I walked the mile or so down the trail to the geyser to find a small crowd already formed.

While I waited the hour or so before the geyser actually erupted, I got to talking with another photographer there, a girl who works in a salmon fishery on a remote island in Alaska. (Have I ever mentioned before that almost everyone I meet knows someone who either teaches in Alaska or moved to Alaska.) Her mother was taking her on vacation around the lower 48 in hopes of convincing her to move back. Anyways, she gave me some pointers about places to visit in the park and I hope to check them out tomorrow. Needless to say, the geyser erupted, it was pretty and I have pictures.

Then came what I am convinced most people think I’m a nutter for doing. I pulled into a picnic area, read for half an hour and took a couple hour nap. (I can just see people coming by, seeing me asleep in the front seat of the Jeep and wondering why I’d come all this way just to nap in the early evening. Oh well, I’m willing to bet they’re not up at sunrise.) I’ve done stuff like this before, I love heading out into the woods with a book, that’s part of the reason why I hunt.

I finished the evening off with a trip to Kepler Cascades (a series of short waterfalls) and sunset at the Great Prismatic Spring, where I think I came out with some decent shots.

I also emptied another 4 gigabytes of photos onto my laptop today, bringing the total for Yellowstone to 7.5 gigs of photos. I think somewhere between here and Glacier I’m going to have to hole up in a hotel room as early as they’ll let me check in and spend a whole afternoon and night processing photos…

Travel Distance: ~30 miles, 10 of it on foot Continue reading →

I made it out to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River this morning for some sunrise photos. Sadly, the sky was pretty cloudy, so I only had patchy light to shoot by. Regardless, I’ve got some shots and we’ll see how well they pan out.

I followed up my sunrise photos with a trip to the lower falls of the Yellowstone River, down a short little trail called, “Uncle Tom’s Trail.” Well, it was short in a horizontal direction. Since it descended 3/4 of the way into a canyon over 300 feet deep, the vertical ascent coming out was something other than easy. It was one of the most impressive waterfalls I’ve been to though. Shoshone Falls in Idaho was prettier, but a large part of that was due to the intricacy of Shoshone; the falls on the Yellowstone River flow through relatively small openings, while Shoshone is made up of several large falls going over a fairly large cliff.

About the time I got back to the car, it started to rain again (it actually rained off and on earlier in the morning as well,which I waited out by doing a bit of reading). Once it let up, the sun came out for a bit and I headed south on the loop road hoping to spot some wildlife. My first stop (for some mallard ducks) came up empty and left me with a pair of muddy pants. So, I headed back up the road a little ways and was rewarded with a heron who wanted to pose for me.

After schlepping my gear back to the car, I headed a bit further south to the Mud Volcano area, where instead of thermal vents and geysers, the soil and acidity of the gases have turned what in other areas of the park are founts of water into boiling pits of mud. Kind of cool, very smelly and not particularly photogenic, but I got some shots in anyways and we’ll see what turns out.

I headed a bit further south, found a nice turnout and took a rather satisfying 2.5 hour nap parked by the side of the road (I found that if I shuffle things around, I can actually shove enough stuff out of the way in the back to pick up the rear passenger seat and recline the driver’s seat). I woke up around 3 in the afternoon and after making a lunch of Ritz crackers and cereal bars, I paid a visit to Fisherman’s Bridge.

At one point, Fisherman’s Bridge was a very popular fishing spot until the Park Service found out that the overfishing was destroying the Cutthroat Trout supply of the river. My civil engineering friends will be interested to know that the bridge is made of wood with a layer of asphalt covering it. (I know because hunks of the asphalt are missing in some places.) I was quite excited to find that there was a whole… flock (is that the right word) of pelicans on the water along with a trail running off the side of the bridge that let me walk a ways along the water to get close enough for some decent pictures. Coming back to the bridge, I took a side trip down to the Visitor’s Center at Fisherman’s Bridge and was actually semi-impressed with this one.

(To be honest, I’ve been rather unimpressed with the Visitor Centers that I’ve seen in Yellowstone, Old Faithful especially. Coming from other parks, there just isn’t that much information in the Visitor Centers; in fact, the one at Grand Teton dwarfs Yellowstone by a wide margin).

I hoofed it back to the car, found out how the showers and laundry facilities work (I’m a clutz, I got chocolate on one pair of pants while traveling and I’d muddied up another pair earlier in the day – probably take care of that Saturday) and popped into the general store there. Now I know where they keep all the memorabilia at Yellowstone; unlike other parks, most of the stuff isn’t in the Visitor Center store, but in the General Store instead.

The rest of my night hasn’t been too interesting really. I finished Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, started another book and took a few short hikes looking for wildlife. Not much found, but I did manage a shot of a couple goslings that I think I can work with.

And now, a little bit of thinking I did earlier, which means you can save yourself a few minutes by not reading:

It struck me earlier, as I was attempting to fall asleep at a pullout along the road that loops through Yellowstone that the park road is significantly more busy than any road I’ve lived on before (excluding the highway by my parents house when the road is blocked a little ways up for the Fourth of July parade). It seems odd to get in your car, drive for hours and hours, to sit in a traffic jam hundreds (if not thousands of miles) from home so that you can at least due it among trees and geysers that explode every once in a while.

Aren’t these parks supposed to be about solitude and communing with nature? Instead, people hop in the cars, or their RVs (Why does anyone need a private bus?) and drive around a 130 mile stretch of road with all the other people from the city, leaving their cars only when they need to take a picture that they can’t hang out the car window and get. Not to mention that when you do actually go on a hike, it’s from an established trailhead with a giant parking lot with 100 of your closest friends you’ll never see again as soon as you step back into your car. I suppose that with 1,000 miles of backcountry trails, if you’re willing to walk a few miles away from the road you can escape a lot of that though. I don’t think many of the city slickers are really into that kind of “adventure.” With camping only allowed in backcountry sites though, you’re likely to have company for the night.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just really missing the Keweenaw, where you can go out for a day and never see another soul quite easily. Sure, the ground doesn’t explode in founts of water there, and there’s no three or four hundred foot canyon running through the middle of it, but by god, you experience nature and you leave having gained an appreciation of it. Hopefully Alaska can provide me with some of that feeling. At this point though, I’m seriously considering coming back through the U.P. so I can spend a little more time in the Keweenaw, I’ll just need someone willing to put me up.

Ah well, I’ve got to get to bed, sunrise comes early and I have a little ways left to drive tonight so I can get to my morning shoot location.

P.S. Does anyone know if you really have to refrigerate jelly after you open it? I bought a squeeze thing of Smucker’s at the General store for sandwiches and will be disappointed if I have to eat 38 sandwiches tomorrow morning before it warms up just so I don’t waste it.

Travel Distance: 53 miles

What is it about traveling with my dad that causes me to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning for photo shoots? Oh, wait… it’s not just when he’s around. Why can’t sunrise be later in the morning? I’d sleep better that way.

Anyways, we got up at 5:15am in the hope of shooting Old Faithful during the sunrise. Sunrise wsa slated for about 5:40am and Old Faithful was supposed to erupt at 6am or so. Since it didn’t actually erupt until 6:15, we missed the sunrise, but still caught a bit of early morning light. I’m not sure how the photos turned out, a couple looked decent on the camera’s LCD, but viewing them on the computer when I get a chance will tell me the real story.

After breakfast in the Old Faithful Inn (breakfast buffet is $10.10, a deal for the excellent food they serve). We hit the road, getting to Gibbon Falls in the late morning. A couple people stared at me as if I was insane for the perch I picked out to shoot the waterfalls, and one old lady was worrying so badly that she wanted to help me back over the marginal railing at the edge of the road. Once I made it back over, my parents relayed to me that several people were actually taking pictures of me instead of the waterfall because they thought I was crazy. Oh well, I go where the shot is and it really wasn’t all that dangerous of a spot.

Up the road further was Mammoth Springs, which I was rather unimpressed by, probably because most of the springs were dry. I was expecting a lot more impressive scenery than there was actually there I suppose. A few more miles up the road led us to Gardiner, MT (primarily because my mother wanted to be able to say she’d gone back to Montana; my parents met there while stationed in the Air Force). We ended up stopping along the way for some pictures of bighorn sheep and mountain goats of course. (Are there no antelope here?)

We headed along the northern road of the park next, through the mountains, down some switchbacks towards the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and the Upper and Lower Falls. Unfortunately, Canyon Rim Drive was closed, so we couldn’t make it to the overlook at the brink of the Lower Falls (over 300 feet tall) but we did make it to the brink of the Upper Falls (a little more than 100 feet tall). We found the view unimpressive… you couldn’t really see the falls from the viewpoints but noticed that across the river there was an overlook. A quick look at the map later and we were back in the cars, headed across the river. A short hike, mostly downhill got us to the observation point where we had a nice uphill climb to look forward to on the way back.

Since we didn’t get to visit the Grand Canyon, and my mom had really been looking forward to that, we drove a few more miles down the road to Artist point, a spot renowned for the number of artists who have come there to paint the canyon and were pleasantly surprised to learn that the lower falls was visible at the end of the canyon. Checking the direction of the sun, I immediately made my decision that this will be my sunrise photo spot for the morning. We’ll see how it turns out.

With that, since it was getting late, we headed south towards Fishing Bridge (and a gas station for the Jeep) where my parents and I split up. They headed east for Michigan so my dad could be back to work on Monday while I’m staying in the park a few more days before heading to Glacier and then back to Michigan so I can take a week or so to take care of my belongings and make my final preparations for moving to Alaska.

So, back north for me, where I shot what should turn out to be a fantastic picture of the sun setting over the mountains being reflected in the lakes of Hayden Valley. A traffic jam caused by a herd of moving buffalo later, I was in a thunderstorm, which was quickly followed by hail. I found a parking lot to pull into and sleep for the night (the entire reason I brought the Jeep instead of my car is the ability to fold the seats down and sleep in the back) and now my alarm is set for 5:15am so I can go shoot the sunrise a mile up the road at the “Grand Canyon.”

Travel Distance: 130 miles

We took our leave of my brother’s house this morning around 9:30 and after a stop for an oil change in the Jeep, we got on the interstate for the Tetons around a quarter after 10 in the morning. An uneventful 6 hours later (we stopped for food instead of eating in the car) we pulled into the Tetons. Unfortunately, they were mostly covered by haze so I’m doubtful that I pulled any really good shots out of our whirlwind tour of the park. However, I won’t know until I can get them on the computer. Regardless, I’ve got a few locations marked down so I can go back to them before I leave the area and try to photograph them in better light.

After the Tetons, we pressed north to get to Yellowstone in time for some sunset pictures. A very quick stop along the main road in from the south to shoot a waterfall (short because the mosquitoes here are huge and thick) and a delay for road construction got us to the West Thumb and Geyser Basin area in time for sunset, though I think I wasted the best light trying to figure out how to shoot it properly. Regardless, I think I’ve got some neat shots of thermal pools.

Right now, we’re in a room at the Old Faithful Inn, a room lacking a bathroom (it’s a communal bathroom down the hall), which is a bit surprising for $100 a night. It’s incredibly rustic feeling though, which is awesome in its own way. I’ll take a couple pictures in the morning of the Inn (when I don’t have to use a tripod) to share.

We’ve semi-have plans for shooting in the morning, and as it’s nearing 11:30pm now, it’s time I hop in bed for oh, 5 hours of sleep.

Travel Distance: 372 miles