Once is Not Enough

I don’t know what it is about our visit to Yellowstone NP this year, it must be the ripe smell we’ve left from too few showers.  But much like the wolves, last Monday a herd of bison decided to pay our early morning photo spot (along the road where the closest parking area is a quarter mile away) a visit just after we’d left it.  I guess once was not enough.

One of the few things on our agenda during our stay at Madison Campground in western Yellowstone was to visit a stretch of barren trees located between the entrance and exit of Firehole Lake Drive.  The whole area is ribboned with streams and water patches and the trees have white bases from the toxic liquid that surrounds them.  We’d photographed it on our last trip and Ann wanted another shot at it (as did I), hoping we’d get another frosty morning to tip the grasses with glistening white.  

Unfortunately, Mother Nature thought we should have different photographic opportunities, and we decided to take advantage of them.  Despite the night being colder than any of the previous nights (or latter nights), instead of frost, as we entered the area we discovered fog.  Photographing the interesting trees in fog instead of frost and brilliant morning sunlight was what was in store for us.

There’s no good parking location for this site, so we parked at the southern end of Fountain Paint Pots and hiked along the road in the dark (with flashlights to let the few cars driving on the road at that awfully early hour of the day that we were there).  It was still so dark one could barely see, but we knew our cameras could capture much more than the naked eye, so we started early.

I’ll skip over the first few images that are little more than lone trees surrounded by fog, but as the sun made its way towards the horizon, we could see more and more detail.

I’ll have to admit, I’m extremely excited about the images I made that morning.  These were quickly grabbed and quickly processed (in a laundromat I might add) for posting.  I can’t wait to get them up on my big, calibrated monitor and really work on them.

The compositional opportunities were incredible and given that we’d scouted the location the previous afternoon, there were several spots I knew I wanted to photograph.  I’m sure the same was true for Ann.  Except of course the lighting conditions were vastly different than what we’d expected.

Eventually the light brightened and we’d pretty much exhausted the shots we’d thought to make.  At some point it feels like you’re repeating yourself and you stop, stand there looking around a while (and enjoying the beauty of where you’re at), and decide it’s time to stop.  So we hiked back to Beast and the coffee waiting for us.

 We had plans for another location to photograph (as well as a hike that entailed) later in the morning and it was time to head on down the road.  It took us a bit to organize our gear in Beast, and to enjoy the first few sips of that blessed beverage.  We then pulled out of the parking lot and . . . not 50 yards down the road, from the direction we’d just come, was a traffic jam.  Dead stop in the middle of the road.  After a few minutes,  Ann stepped out of Beast but couldn’t see what was causing it.  As she put it, “The line is so long I can’t even see the end of it.”  So as the fog rolled in and out, we waited, occasionally moving up 10 feet at a time, then stopping for a bit, then inching along a bit more.

Finally, off in the distance I saw some faint forms.  Bison.  Ann handed me her Sony point-and-shoot (because it has a much much longer telephoto zoom than mine does), and I started snapping away.  Once again, as Ann put it, “This will make another great story!”

Apparently the bison decided to take the easy way from one meadow area to another - right down the road!  As they got to where we’d been not 20 minutes earlier wouldn’t you know they would walk into the trees (now that would have made for some interesting fine art shots).  I was left to photograph from Beast, inching along down the road (yes, I know not the safest thing to do in the world).  But we were inching and Ann was watching the RV ahead of us.

Many of the bison stayed on the road, so it was slow going as the herd made its way past us.  One fella had a collar on; others would stop briefly before moving on.

Behind the herd was a Park Service facility cleaning vehicle, the driver just sitting there laughing.  As we passed I rolled down the window and said, “The best excuse ever for being late to work!”  Another laugh.

My regrets for not waiting another half hour to return to Beast was short lived.  If we’d been in the area, we would have had to leave.  I never would have gotten the shots I imagined I could have.  Again, like the wolves, we were better off being in Beast.  And although I didn’t use the big gun (it would have been way too close for that lens!), Ann’s Sony produced some mighty fine images.

By the time you read this, we’ll be well on our way down south for the next legs of our trip.  Yosemite, as always, offered us more than we could have imagined, and once was not nearly enough for close encounters with wildlife!