Yellowstone National Park - Part 1

So here it is, finally, the recap of our Yellowstone trip.  Better late than never!

The trip started off with us heading north instead of east.  The aisles and seats of Beast were loaded up with boxes of stuff I’d used in my apartment in Liberia, to be donated to Phil’s daughter Emily (and her parter John), who moved to Portland so Emily could study at the University of Oregon’s graduate program in architecture.  After quite the workout of hauling boxes upstairs and a nice lunch, Ann and I were on our way up the Columbia River Gorge.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the lovely ride it usually is because the Oregon side of the Gorge was engulfed in flames, the interstate was closed and we were driving on the Washington side of the river.  Like too many places this summer, it was a sad sight to see the smoke and fires.  

We crossed the Columbia at The Dalles and made good time to a campsite just outside of La Grande, Oregon.  

The next morning we had breakfast in La Grande (a nice little town) and had what can only be described as the best damn fritters (pear and apple) that we’ve ever tasted.  We were blessed by the discovery and cursed at the same time (the yin and yang of life).  Cursed I say because every pastry we tried for the rest of the trip was disappointing compared to those fritters.  Ugh!

We spent the second night at Lake Walcott in Idaho, about an hour east of Twin Falls, excited to enter Yellowstone the following day.

Driving towards the park we saw snow in the mountains and had snow flurries hitting our windshield.  A friend of Ann’s mentioned that the winter storms had started and to expect snow.  We were hoping for just that!  Our plan was to drive into the park and stop at Canyon campground for a night - take a shower, do laundry, have dinner, etc. - then head into the Lamar Valley the next morning.  Once at Canyon we found out that the road north had been closed the day before and hadn’t opened until after noon that day, and that another storm was expected to roll in that night.  So Ann and I took hot showers while the laundry was in the machine, and headed north that same afternoon.  

Yeah, winter had started, at least for the elevated portions of Yellowstone.

Dropping down into the Lamar Valley, things cleared up quite a bit.  As we drove up the valley we saw that the Slough Creek campground was full, so we headed up to Pebble Creek where we’d stayed the last time we were here.  We were in luck!  Four sites were open so we grabbed one for the night.  With even more luck, Slough Creek would have a vacancy the next day.

And lucky we were.  We were the first in line the next morning at Slough Creek and got a spot, which we could keep for as long as we wanted . . . or until a better spot opened up.  Not the best campsite, but it would do if necessary.  

Campsite in hand, Ann and I decided to scout the Lamar Valley.  We didn’t do a lot of photography that first day.  Instead, we spent our time loving just being there and having bison all around us.  For those of you on Facebook, that’s the day the bison stopped traffic right in front of us and I posted a video (taken with my iPhone held out the driver’s side window) of the bull  trying to make nice to a cow right in front of us, eventually nudging her until she was about one foot in front of Beast.   At that point, she (the cow, not Beast) had had enough of it and rammed her horns into the bull.  Undeterred, he at least let her get off the road.  It was a great welcome back to the Lamar Valley.

The next morning we found out that the folks occupying the best campsite in Slough Creek were leaving so we waited around and nabbed it.  You’ll see an image of beast at the location later on, but it really was the best spot in the campground, perhaps in all of Yellowstone.

Unfortunately, the Slough Creek Campground is in a cell-phone vortex.  Note I said vortex, not hole.  In most of the Lamar Valley there is absolutely no cell phone coverage, nonetheless web access.  However, drive 5 miles down a rough dirt road into an even tighter valley and, lo and behold, at the Slough Creek Campground you get not just cell coverage, but LTE.  Usually, that’s good news, but that day it wasn’t because someone at Ann’s work had done a server patch without checking first with Ann and several of LCOG’s customers’ websites were down.  

So while Ann sat in Beast using her cellphone as a wi-fi hotspot to connect her laptop to get into the servers, and using my phone to talk folks through fixing the problems, I sat out by Slough Creek, drinking coffee, reading Overland Journal and eventually picking up my camera to make a few photographs not 50 feet away. 

Fortunately, Ann solved the problem and her employers were smart enough to leave us alone for the rest of the trip.  

The whole time we were in the Lamar Valley, we heard forecasts of impending snow storms - winter storm warnings promising nightmares.  Sometimes they hit, but lightly, sometimes they missed.  We actually had hoped to get lots of snow, but that didn’t pan out.  That doesn’t mean we didn’t get any snow, at least in the early part of the trip, but we never really got dumped on.

Still, the next day we woke up to snow.  It was only a couple of inches of it, but enough to give us a taste of what might come.  And while it had melted by that afternoon, the morning snows got us thinking about photographing in the white stuff.

The next morning we found the clouds starting to break, so we got out early.  We took our time along Slough Creek and eventually stopped at a hill overlooking what Ann and I came to call the S-curve.  We could see the morning light occasionally making its way through holes in the clouds, so we tromped out to a hillside and set up our tripods, careful not to step in the bison pies.  The light that morning was simply magical.

We spent the rest of the morning working our way up the valley.  At one point, Ann wanted to check out a grove of Cottonwood Trees about a quarter mile away from the road along Soda Butte Creek, a location we’d return to again.  The rest of the time we continued our usual pattern of driving around to check out different locations to photograph, either then, or for later reference.

The next day we headed to Mammoth Hot Springs and then to Gardiner to do laundry, fill Beast up with water, and stock up on supplies..  Although we were only 6 days into our 8 day laundry cycle, the forecast was for a big storm to roll in on day 7 and we though we might as well do things a couple of days earlier rather than be stuck wearing stinky clothes.  

After breakfast and a shower at Mammoth, we drove around a bit.  I saw a shot, and climbed out in the rain to photograph a tree that had a formation grow up around it.  Usually my hat is used to cover my head, but this time I used it to cover my camera and lens, less to protect the camera than to keep spots off the lens.  I think getting my head splattered with rain was worth it.

I'm pretty sure Ann and I made the right call to take care of business early because this was our campsite the following morning.

Didn’t I tell you we had the best campsite in the park!

Like a couple of days earlier, we took our time heading out Slough Creek.  We eventually made it back to the S-curve overlook where we were blessed with wolves howling from the ridge behind us, and coyotes yapping in competition from the ridge line in front of us.  Sometimes when we’re photographing we just stop, look at each other and comment on how lucky we are.  

By the time we started making our way up the Lamar Valley, the sun began breaking through and giving us an incredible light show on the snow.

We kept photographing all day until the skies cleared for a bit just as we made it back to the Cottonwood grove we’d scouted a couple of days earlier.

By the time we hiked back to Beast the clouds had rolled back in, bringing with it fog and a very cold chill.  Still, we continued to photograph, not knowing how long the snow would last.

It was an incredible day of photography and we were hoping for more the next day.  

We started the morning early.  The night before Ann and I had discussed a game plan for the morning and decided to focus on the river and the snow.  That approach didn’t disappoint.  Our scouting earlier in the trip allowed us to know where we wanted to go and why.

We worked our way up the Lamar Valley, photographed until we were cold and exhausted, brewed some more coffee, and then headed back down the Lamar Valley.  There, we found the snows already melting and by that afternoon there was little left on the ground. 

Thankfully, we’d taken advantage of the snow while we had it because we didn’t get any more snow for the rest of our stay in the Lamar Valley.