YELLOWSTONE 3

Sunday, 8 June: Went in search of grizzlies this morning but came up with only one brief encounter with a grizzly and two cubs passing through the area quickly and quite a distance away.

Grizzlies on the Move, 0600

There has been lots of driving and and searching the open sagebrush and meadows, and most of the time we have not seen any. Came back to the Canyon Lodge and started our laundry before we went to breakfast. Before breakfast Mark connected with his guide in the winter, Doug. We learned that the new policy is to push the bears out of the areas where they have been living, and further away from civilization.That is the reason we have seen few.

Riding the Range

Hairy Clematis

Wagon Ride

We finished our laundry chores and then had about 30 minutes of rest time. I got about a 15 minute nap! Once again were were off for more adventures. We first went to Tower Falls to photograph it. We had planned to hike down a short trail to be at it’s base, but the trail was closed! We then photographed the fast water above the falls which was quite strong.

Tower Falls

Played with different shutter speeds on the water. Returning to Canyon Lodge we checked out the area for the black bear with three cubs, and came up short in that area.

 On our search for wildlife in the late afternoon we stopped to photograph a growing thunderhead in the distance. With this we were able made people more aware of what was happening and can happen it the sky.

Remains of 1988 Fires

The lighting situation was good so we went and photographed the We went to the Mud Geyser to photograph sunset at Mud Geyser and the mist created by it. One had to time the photograph so that the steam from the geyser covered up a couple of elements of the “hand of man”.

Monday, 9 June: Sunrise this morning was at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We were the first there so we were able to pick where to put our tripods. We did not have a great lot of color as there were few clouds, but we enjoyed watching the color enter the canyon.

We found a bull elk that had a good rack growing, and were able to get the rack showing the velvet on the rack.

The next major wildlife encounter with was with some bison. They were quite close to the road so it was easy to get some close pictures. Eventually there was one or two that started to move about. Eventually one walked right by the back of one of our cars. Mark and I were a bit further down the road photographing this. The bison proceed to walk toward us, and eventually we had to take evasive action. That action was to walk slowly away, and then a truck came by and we were able to tuck in behind it and use it for a shield.

There were a couple of other animal sightings and a photo ops of trumpeter swans flying.

We then headed for the Fountain Paint Pot area for seeing and photographing the paint pots and geysers in this area.

Paint Pot Bubbling

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Clepsydia Geyser

Clepsedia Geyser

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Barren Landscape in Geyser Basin

Runoff from Grand Prismatic

About mid afternoon we headed for Old Faithful. We got caught either in a animal jam or a back up from a car accident, so we stopped and pulled off the road and out of traffic. We then learned of a grizzly on the other side of the river. We proceeded to watch and photograph it as it crossed to a small island, and then to our shore. He proceeded to approach the road but could not see an opening in the wall of cars. This was our best experience in photographing a grizzly on this trip. It was wonderful to see him swimming, etc.

Finally we made it to Old Faithful Geyser and were lucky to reach it with only about a 15 minute wait time before it went off. It put on a good show.

Old Faithful Geyser

We then proceeded to TETON N. P. for our stay at Signal Mountain Lodge. For sunset a few of us went down on the shore near the Dam for Jackson Lake. It was a bit of a scramble and I would not have done it without the help of Mark and Joe to guide my feet down the 20 foot slope. There is a cable set into the slope to hold onto, but you still have to have help on where to place your feet.

The Tetons from Jackson L. Dam area

We finally checked into our Lodge about 2200!!