The 2015 Spring Roadtrip: Yellowstone NP

The morning in Grand Teton was very enjoyable, but I probably didn't pay close enough attention to my schedule. Cutting out photo ops in the southern portion of the park moved things along, but when I crossed from Grand Teton into Yellowstone I was still looking for places to save time and get out on the road to Boise. It occurred to me that ever since I was in the Navy I've tended to jam too much stuff into a limited amount of time. I probably ought to keep that in mind when I plan my next road trip.

This view is looking south along the Lewis River, from a roadside turnout just a few miles inside Yellowstone's south entrance. Well above the river, the turnout had a low granite wall to keep cars and people from playing too close to the edge of the drop off. Of course, some people are going to see a wall like that as something to climb on or, in my case for example, something to sit on while angling for a good shot of the river.

I was sitting thus when I took this shot, which really wasn't as good an angle as I had expected. But, you win some and lose some. Sitting on the low wall and straddling it on uneven ground, I found I needed to lean forward to get my weight over my feet so I could stand up. Well, that was when time slowed right down and everything happening at once became a sequence of events.

+++ Bonus Special +++

This satellite shot (above) from Google maps shows the set up. I wasn't really dizzy exactly, but I was off balance. I heard traffic coming up the road behind me and I thought to myself, "if you fall, don't fall left and roll into the road or you'll be just another grease spot." Followed quickly by, "Oh! And don't fall right either or they'll find your carcass a mile or two downstream hung up on the pine branch." So I elected to fall straight ahead. Luckily, I was already so low that the fall was reasonably short. My left knee hit the gravel at the edge of the road and my right knee, my right elbow, and the knife edge of both hands hit the granite wall. That was because I was holding my new camera with my right hand and cradling the lens with my left. That didn't really protect the camera or lens (below) as well as I might have hoped. The bezel of the articulated LCD sustained most of the damage but seems to be superficial. The zoom lens worried me more because, though I couldn't find any scratches on it, the focus ring was jammed. Back in the Sierra I cleaned up the camera and strong-armed the jammed focus ring, took several test shots and found my trust in Canon was not misplaced: everything seem to be working fine.

Camera concerns aside, I took stock of the photographer. Both knees were burning, so I knew they were abraded even though my jeans had not been torn. My right elbow and both hands were a little worse for wear, but all three had quit bleeding. When I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror I realized for the first time that I also had a bloody nose, also no longer bleeding.

I sat there for about 15 minutes, letting my heart rate returned to normal, nibbling on a danish to keep my blood sugar up and thinking about what had happened. The car I'd heard approaching when this whole thing began, came to a screeching halt beside me, 4 or 5 feet away. I waved, to let the occupants know I was all right, and tried to wave them on (who wants to be the cause of the traffic jam in Yellowstone?). Well, that didn't take. As cars started to stack up behind them, the lady in the passenger seat got out to help me up. I remember thinking that the reason they didn't understand my hand signals was probably because they were upside down (?). Of course, I was the one standing on my head, or nearly so. As I started to right myself the lady offered her hand. I handed her my camera then, realizing I still needed help, reached for the proffered hand. She juggled the camera briefly, took my hand and steadied me, then pulled me to my feet (she was really strong, I guess). I assured her that I'd be fine, my truck was right there - 15 feet away, and apologized for the trouble I'd caused. Halfway to the Sierra the kind lady caught up with me, handed my camera back, and told me to take it easy for a while.

Eating that danish turned out to be a master stroke. Sure, my knees burned and the other abrasions hurt, but my blood chemistry stayed put and I didn't have a hypoglycemic crash like I did last October when I slipped on wet leaves and rolled to the bottom of that hill in the Great Smoky Mountains NP. In fact, other than the lingering effects already noted above, I was fine. . . no grease spot; no soggy carcass in the river below. But I need to be more careful or they'll be asking me to surrender my Interagency Senior Pass.

+++ Back to the Tour +++

I'm not exactly sure, but I think this first picture of Yellowstone Lake was taken on the Grand Loop Road looking out over the West Thumb. What got my attention in the first place was the steam rising, apparently from where a hot spring drained into the lake.

This shot - also Yellowstone Lake - was farther north along the Grand Loop, looking east around Gull Point towards the North Absaroka Wilderness and the Shoshone National Forest.

This gentle waterway (here at least) is the Yellowstone River, taken from Fishers Bridge at the north end of Yellowstone Lake. The upper and lower Yellowstone Falls are both a few miles farther north.

Thus far there had been a marked dearth of wildlife in both Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I saw these two bison in the river as I approached a turnout. By the time I got around the corner, they had finished their baths and were drip-drying in the meadow. There were a lot of onlookers at the turn out, but not many with a decent sized telephoto for this scenario. I'm glad I had one. From here through the west entrance I saw bison around nearly every turn. I saw a dozen or so elk, all in one place, and I think I saw a river otter some distance off the road - it could as easily have been a beaver. About a mile from the west entrance I encountered a final bison at the edge of the road. I could've gotten a great picture from 5 feet away, but that was way too close.

I passed various fumaroles and paint pots as the Grand Loop Road approached the West Entrance Road. The picture above was taken from the bridge over the Gibbon River between Monument Geyser and Paint Pot Hill.

This last shot from the West Entrance Road is looking northwest across the Madison River towards the Montana mountains of the Gallatin National Forest.

My roadtrip to this point has been enjoyable and perhaps a little bit adventurous. But I'm going to have to think about the possibility of driving to a destination and staying for a couple of days then driving home. . . sort of like an extended day trip. I don't know how that would strike me. It would certainly be a big change; so far, it's all been about covering lots of ground for me, with efficient routing and minimal dead space. Dead space is boring to drive through and has little of photographic or historical interest. Unfortunately, there seem to be large swathes of it between wherever I happen to be and wherever I want to go. Oh well, we shall see.