Norris Campground

After a nice prelude to get our minds off of our everyday lives, we were ready to start the heart of our vacation.  Next stop was the West Yellowstone entrance and then to Norris Campground, hopefully to find a camp site.  Yes, I did say camping.  While I haven’t been totally unemployed for the past year, I haven’t been even close to fully employed (thank goodness for lawyer hourly rates - maybe that’s why I decided law school wasn’t such a bad idea . . .).  The only way Ann and I were going to be able to afford a 3 week vacation, inside Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks, were if we could go on the cheap, and that meant camping!Fortunately we found a spot at our intended campground - Norris Camprgound on the central-western portion of Yellowstone.  Our big picture goal was to stay at two Yellowstone campgrounds and one Tetons campground and use those as bases we could explore the parks from.  It pretty much worked even though competition for campsites was intense (I guess we could have waited one more week to start vacation to make it easier, but not really) and the production required for us to set up our base camp meant that, even if we didn’t get an ideal campsite (which we didn’t in any instance), we were not inclined to try and get a better site once we’ve set up.

Here was our campsite at the Norris Campground.

Our set-up consisted of a super-cheap Coleman 8-person tent (which meant we had plenty of space, were able to have cots to sleep on and I could stand up in the middle of it when I was dressing!), an REI canopy over our picnic table/cooking area, and a platform hitch on our car to carry it all on. It’s certainly a far cry from backpacking when I would tote everything I needed for 5 days on the Rogue River on my back!

That big brown box in the background is the bear box. Everything that had any sort of food or “scent” to it (think deodorant and toothpaste) had to kept in the car or in the bear box unless you were actively present. This meant that cooking in the morning meant pulling everything out (stove, etc) cooking it, and then putting it all away before you head out of camp. While it may have been much cheaper to camp, it required a lot of extra time to do the normal everyday things we do for ourselves. Still, it was part of the adventure and since it made the trip possible, it was worth it! And for those of you who think we were “roughing it” too much, well, that first night Ann made a delicious italian sausage, grilled onions, handmade mozzarella and pesto pizza in a dutch oven. Talk about delicious!

Part of our normal routine was to have what I called “moving days”, which the primary purpose was to relocate camp, with no serious thought of checking out the area we moved to. If we had free time, we’d either relax or dedicate it to scouting out potential areas to photograph and/or visit. If we got any photographs out of the day, well that was just icing on the cake. Well, we spent that first afternoon checking out the campground area and meeting the guy across the road who is on his own traveling adventure (check out Russontheroad.wordpress.com if you’re interested in seeing his adventures).

The next day’s destinations were all centered around the Midway Geyser Basin. We started out with a several mile hike to photograph Fairy Falls . . .

and continued to our first real checking out of a geyser, the Imperial Geyser.

It was a great, up close and personal introduction to geysers and the incredible colors (and awful stench - rotten eggs anyone?) that are associated with them. It quickly makes you realize that, indeed, you are walking on top of a volcano just waiting to erupt!

It’s hard to describe just how beautiful a place Yellowstone is. Especially once you get away from the crowds (something Ann and I unfortunately became too familiar with) and are walking on your own. You get these juxtapositions of beautiful but normal landscapes with these relatively small but incredibly colorful geologic formations that just don’t seem real. And just when you think you’ve seen it all, you come across a new type of formation or other colors you just can’t believe. Unfortunately, it’s all incredibly difficult to photograph well.

As we were hiking back to our car, we could see the Grand Prismatic geyser from the side. There were only a couple of locations that I absolutely had to see, and the Grand Prismatic was one of them. Even from the side, from a distance, it was amazing. You could see the different coloring of the geyser in the mist - reds, blues, yellows - coloring formed by different types of bacteria that live at different temperatures in the geyser.

As we approached a hillside, Ann and I decided to climb the hill to get a look down at it.  Ann encouraged me to go to the top for a better view and potential photographs.  I didn’t need more arm-twisting than that and I took off.  Here’s the broad view of the Grand Prismatic I took from the hillside.

As the mid-part of the day was approaching, which makes for poor light to photograph in, we headed back towards the campground to have our dinner as a late lunch, and to return (a short 20 minute drive or so) later in the day.  On our way we stopped in at one of the pull out areas (part of our continual scouting of sites) and came across our first bison.

We had apparently just missed it crossing the river to go on this island for its own supper.  As we were to find out in much greater detail, the bison experience in the geyser basin areas of Yellowstone is pretty much that of the solitary male bison.  Still, it’s pretty impressive to see these massive animals just wandering around.

After our own dinner, we headed back to the Midway Geyser Basin to photograph the Grand Prismatic and other geysers as the day was ending.

As we approached the Excelsior Geyser on the boardwalk (visible on the image of the Grand Prismatic above), we noticed that we could get a nice shot with the moon in it as well as some of the beautiful mustard yellow colors on the stream that flowed from it to the Firehole River.

As for the Grand Prismatic, well I have to admit to mixed feelings. From the boardwalk, it is nearly impossible to get a big picture view of the geyser (especially when it is cooler and the steam is more intense) and you get no feeling that it looks the way it does like you do from the hillside. On the other hand, for me it and the surrounding geysers (they’re all inter-connected by surface waters) became a place of intense photographic creativity ranging from slightly abstract (where you can tell it might be something real) . . .

to a total abstraction that is nothing but visual imagery.

The patterns and colors are formed by bacterial mats in the geyser area that, for me, became a source of endless fascination.

Unfortunately, despite plenty of signs stating otherwise, people would write things on the mats, touch them with their hands (by the boardwalk the water apparently isn’t so hot) and throw things in them.  I’d hate to be there with the crowds of July and August.  And one thing the geyser basin areas did for us was to make us pretty disgusted with people as a whole.  The nature was incredible, the people much less so.

As the sun set on that first full day of photographing in Yellowstone, the sunset petered out and pretty much left us with nothing.  That happens and you can only photograph what is there.  Still, it was a great day.

The next morning we got up and out at a reasonable time, though not for sunrise.  We hadn’t found any inviting sunrise areas so decided on a hearty breakfast instead.  However, right outside the entrance to Norris campground we found our first photo subjects.

Time and time again in Yellowstone we’d find that early morning held wonderful photographic gifts.

That morning we decided we’d stop by the Midway Geyser Basin again to see it in early morning light (and maybe beat the crowds at the Grand Prismatic).  After driving past a bison walking along the main road (I took an iPhone shot of it), we wound up pulling over at the location we stopped at earlier because, . . . well, did I say we saw bison at Yellowstone?

Having a chance to photograph a bison from 30 feet away was one I couldn’t pass up.  Yes, I had the body of the car between it and me (You wouldn’t believe how many people just run out in front of these animals, 10-15 feet away to get a photograph.  Knowing that shouldn’t surprise you that every year a dozen or so people get gored by bison because . . . they run to 10-15 feet in front of these wild animals.)

We quickly headed onward to the basin for some photographs.  Given it was a chilly morning, steam was rising all over the place.  It made it difficult to actually see the geysers, but it gave us interesting conditions for photographs.

Once we got up on the boardwalk it felt like another world.

And, of course, I naturally fell into abstract mode at the Grand Prismatic.

Yellowstone-Norris-12-GrandPrismaticCloseUP

I could flood you with dozens of abstract images from that place, but I’ve found that people either love them or hate them so I’ll spare you.

We made our way down to the more southern of the basins (where Old Faithful [which we did not go to see, though we did eat lunch at the lodge] and other geysers are located). We went to check out Black Sand Basin . . .

and Biscuit Basin, but by then the light just wasn’t doing it for us.  Interesting things to see, but not so interesting photographically.

On the way back north, we stopped to watch some fishermen on the Firehole River . . .

. . . and another bison grazing away.

I’d planned Fridays to be our laundry day.  We generally had to do laundry once a week, wanted to take a shower every 3-4 days and had a need to find power to charge our camera and iPhones/iPads every so often.  Since the Canyon Campground had a laundry mat and showers (and as we found out - power), that was a key destination that first week.  Like moving days, laundry days were intended to be functional days and if we got any images out of it - great!  If not, no loss so long as we had clean clothes, a fresh shave and charged batteries.

Our first laundry day was great because we got out early to check out the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone before we hit the showers.  While the locations were pretty packed, the views along the canyon roads (north and south sides) were worth it.

The views of the lower falls were impressive, as were the views of the rest of the canyon.

On our way out the next morning, we stopped for another bison shot at a location where, just two days earlier I said, “Now what I want is a bison out in that field so I can get a shot of the bison with those geysers in the background.”  Well, guess what was there . . .

Sure, the bison was “way” out there, but for me, this image really sums up much of the geyser basin in Yellowstone.

Our first destination that day was the Norris Basin. When we arrived mist was everywhere (not surprising given most mornings it was in the low 30’s, with one morning 24 and another 27) and we couldn’t see a thing. So we decided to head out to our next destination for the day, the Artists Paintpot in the hope that conditions there were a bit better. Like so many of the sites in Yellowstone, it offered us images we hadn’t expected. While mists were still rising when we arrived there, they were more dispersed and played well with the light. Fortunately, there were a lot of images to be made and Ann and I spent over 3 hours there photographing.

That pretty much was our pattern of enjoying things this vacation.  We’d not feel pressured to see too many things, once a place captivated us we tended to stay at that one location for a while, and we’d stop for the day when we felt like just relaxing (or were fed up with people - did I mention we got pretty tired of people during this trip?).  

On the way back from the Artists Paintpot Ann raised the idea of departing from the geyser area a day early to head up to the Lamar Valley.  I agreed.  While the sites were beautiful, photographically they were a bit limiting and . . . well, take a look at the parentheses in the previous paragraph.

So during the mid-part of the day, we started packing things up for the next day’s move, then headed back to the Norris Basin (a mere 2 miles from our camp site) for a final shoot in the geyser area of Yellowstone.  It didn’t disappoint.  It offered us a range of different geyser types, a variety of landscape images and a final moonrise/sunset shot at Steamboat Geyser.

Steamboat Geyser is an interesting geyser.  When it goes off, it sounds like a loud steam train whistle.  In fact, it’s only had 9 major eruptions in the past 25 years.  One of them was when we were at the campground.  The “train whistle” woke me up in the middle of the night and that was the reason there was steam coming out of it when we visited a few days later.  Which led to this image.  Lucky us.

The next day was move day.  As we were leaving the campground area I took one last iPhone photo of the creek and field next to the campground.

Next stop, the Lamar Valley.