Yellowstone 1.0

I call this post Yellowstone 1.0 because while this was my first ever visit to this amazing place, I know that it be only one of many visits.

*Bison feeding out in one of the vast valleys of Yellowstone*

I finally made it to Yellowstone National Park!

I have wanted to go since I was a child. I always felt some strange connection to the park. I knew the wildlife and scenery were totally in tune with who I am and where I like to be.

And I was spot on!

I have been thinking about how I am going to share my Yellowstone experience here on this blog. I have well over 2,000 photos and videos, so hold on here we go!

OK, just kidding. I wouldn’t do that to my worse enemy. However, I will be sharing about 40 or so photos and a some videos as well

*Yours truly at the south entrance to the park. This was actually taken on my way out.*

I have been thinking about how to organize this post. I usually do it chronologically. This time I think I am going to clump content by themes. Let’s see how that works out!

WHY YELLOWSTONE NOW?

I happen to travel quite a bit for my work. Sometimes that affords me the opportunity to see and do things that I might now have done otherwise. I may have a few hours in an early morning to hike somewhere or some time in the evening to do something fun. In this case, I was having a business meeting in the Idaho Falls area on a Friday. When I realized how close Yellowstone was to Idaho Falls, I decided to trek my way to the park for my first visit.

*My van enjoying the views of some of the geothermal geysers at Yellowstone*

I drove to Idaho Fall from home and loaded it up for a weekend of “vanping” in Yellowstone. Vanping is a word that I made up (it is possible others use it as well) to describe camping in my van. Fortunately, I can take out a row of seats and fold the last row into the floor and I end up with a wide open cargo-like van. I am a tall person, I can totally stretch out with room to spare while sleeping in the van.

The van is a 2009 Toyota Sienna with 230,000 miles on it. It has been everywhere with me and makes a terrific vanping partner because it already has a few dings and scratches. Going off road or in strange places does not cause any concern.

Right before entering at West Yellowstone, I stopped to get some dinner before immersing myself in Yellowstone goodness.

I stopped at Firehole BBQ. It was about 6:30 at night and they were packed. In fact, they were out of all of the BBQ except for pulled pork. So guess what I had. Yep, you’re right, I had pulled pork with beans, slaw and bbq corn salad. It was fantastic and a nice start to me weekend adventure.

With a full belly I entered the park.

Within about 3 minutes of being in the park, an elk crossed the road right in front of me. I quickly pulled over to try to get a picture. The sun has already set, but there was still enough ambient light to at least capture some type of picture. So I show cell phone shot and took video of the elk walking across the river.

I had 6 goals for the visit: see lots of waterfalls, get pix of elk, bison, moose and bears, and get a huge panorama with snow-capped mountains in the background. Being the end of summer, I knew the last was unlikely. But I certainly did not think that I would meet one of my goal within the first 3 minutes of being in the park.

I knew it was going to be a good visit!

I shot some lame pix of the moon rising over a river valley that were just too dark, then I found a place for go vanping for the night.

*This was the best of the moon shots. I forgot my tripod so I had to hand hold the camera.*

BISON

One of the many highlights of the visit was seeing hundreds of bison in the Washburn Range. They were descending from a hill down into the range where there was water and lots of grazing. I felt like I was in a movie. The first image at the top of this post is one of the shots from this area.

*This was the clutch spoken of in the photo above*

On Sunday before I left the park, I ran into a long line of traffic. Initially, I thought it was a lot of people trying to leave the park. Turns out, that a bison was walking down the middle of the road. The back up was for several miles.

When I return, I am going to hangout for a couple days in the Lamar Valley and just shoot bison and other wildlife.

Waterfalls, Rivers and Water

*Lower Falls was spectacular. The trail to get down closer was temporarily closed.*

Upstream from Lower Falls, was….., drum roll please…. the UPPER FALLS!

*Firehole River on a foggy morning enhanced by geothermal activity*

Continuing with more water related shots, Sunday morning’s drive out of the south entrance of the park produced some terrific images. Between the Snake River and Jackson Lake, I could have spent hours, or even all day.

GEOTHERMALS

*A distant view of Dragon’s Mouth Spring*

*Activity on the banks of Yellowstone Lake*

And now for the granddaddy of them all – OLD FAITHTFUL. I was able to see it erupt several times. TBH, I was expecting it to be more dramatic. Nonetheless, it was still cool, just not what I was thinking. Below is a time lapse of the eruption.