Yellowstone 2009 day 1 and 2

Jun 3, 2009

From the archives

Yellowstone 2009

This vacation was very much needed. Work was becoming well a nightmare and I desperately needed to get away for a while. My parents had been talking about going up to Yellowstone for a few weeks and on Mothers day asked me to look for hotel rooms online to accommodate 3 possibly 4 couples…. Yea that didn’t go down very well. With the days ticking away and drawing blanks online (and KSL says travel is down, no one is traveling. liars!) worrying that we were not going to find a place, we finally found one. I’m guessing it was a last minute cancellation because it was perfect. It had 3 bedrooms, a pull out couch, a kitchen and living room. And it was in the area we wanted to be in.

It’s one thing to go on vacation with my Parents. It’s another to go on vacation with my parents and my little brother. Its completely another story to go on vacation with my parents, 2 brothers, their wives, and their children. That was very interesting. Here are my nephews helping me decide what to do the next day.

 

Due to the amount of people we had and the lack of a car big enough we went into the park in 3 separate cars attempting to stay together as a caravan…. Yea that was fun. The first day My mom, worrying the weather was going to turn suggested we try to get the east side of the park done first, starting at Mud Volcano and then working our way up north. Of course this required some back tracking but it worked out. On the way up we saw some elk in near the Madison River.

 
And a quick stop by Gibbon Falls

  Look at how far that forest goes, just miles and miles of unmolested woods. Its absolutely beautiful.

From there we stopped by Beryl Spring.

 
We finally arrived at Mud Volcano and while waiting for the rest of the caravan we walked up to Sulpher Cauldron, which is not very photogenic, but I did want to share this picture of a place the road collapsed when a new steam vent opened up.

 

I have already shared pictures of Mud Volcano so I won’t share too many for this post. Here is a cool one of a buffalo chillin by a hot spring.

After that we decided to go back up the way we came and hit a few spots on the way to Dunraven Pass.

Us at the lower falls of the Yellowstone.

A cool pic I caught of a very unafraid crow.

  And the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone

From Above

Playing with settings on my camera I caught the “in motion” image of the Yellowstone River before it plummets down the upper falls.

After hitting these few stops we were all hungry and stopped by the Tower Junction for some food. Of course it was 4:05 and they closed the restaurant at 4 so we were screwed. Everybody was hungry and getting ornery and we needed to eat. My brother Nate had the worst of this with wife who had a newborn, so she wanted to go home, and they did. The rest of us were starving and pissy. So we found some pre made food in the small grocery store here and were good to go.

We wanted to head up to the Lamar Valley and see some wildlife, and of course Tower Falls which is on the way.

Here is the first bear we saw.

Here is a pretty valley just North of Dunraven Pass.

 
Here is Tower Falls again playing with settings on my camera. I like the way this one turned out.

We decided to hike down this time, despite the sign that warned the end of the trail was closed due to flooding.

This is a cool image of the Yellowstone Canyon.

Unfortunately the trail ended before we could get to the lower view of Tower Falls. So that was kind of a pointless, painful hike on our part, but it was pretty.

Here is bear number 2 we saw this day.

This one was rather close to the road and I walked out to take his/her picture. There was a ranger who was allowing crowds to get surprisingly close, probably due to the absence of cubs. However I felt like she was trying to get away from all the people and convinced the family to leave rather than chase her

.
This is an image I took when we passed a LARGE group of people with HUGE lenses all pointed the same way. No one was taking pictures, and I have no clue what they were waiting for. (although this is the spot the year before there were grizzlies so that is probably it) I thought I saw something so I took this, nothing there. But it is a pretty nature shot I guess.

After this The remaining caravan decided to hit petrified tree so we left the group and headed up towards that.

Petrified tree.

The remaining stump is 1 of 3 that were here, the rest chipped away by souvenirists, so this remaining one was fenced in… cemetery style. Hehe.

Moose we saw near Petrified Tree.

We waited for what seemed like hours for the rest of the family to arrive, before getting mad and deciding to head back. When we did of course we passed them, so we turned around and met back up with them. Apparently they stopped again at what they thought were elk (which we had stopped at, saw elk and left) and they turned out to be Bighorn Sheep and a wolf. Darnit.

Even though the light was fading my brother wanted to go to Mammoth Hot Springs so we headed up that way.

Here is bear number 3 we found.

Another pretty valley view, with what appears to be a random hotspring or two.

Bear number 4.

Again this one was really close to the road. We actually saw 3 or 4 more bears, but they were so far way that even with my telephoto lens they were just dots so I don’t really count them.

Some antelope.

This is Mammoth Hot Springs from afar… and my brothers car.

Lower terrace

Above Canary Springs

Canary Springs. I like the lighting and the Reflections

Again, above Canary Springs.

Very interesting lighting during dusk.

After that the light was gone in fact the above image I had to use a flash. So after driving through the upper terrace we headed back to our condo. Upon returning we realized my other brother and wife had packed up and left.
All and all day two we packed a lot of adventuring in. It was good times.
Stay tuned for day 3 and 4.

Including original comments from the archive.

• Ashley: Oh, so much fun.  I want to go to Yellowstone sometime.  I've never been. I am always paranoid I am going to fall into some boiling hot spring and die or something...as would be appropriate for me.

2 years ago

• aubrey: you got to see 5 bears in the wild! Lucky and There was water at the canary springs! Super Lucky! you guys got some great pictures! Can't wait to see days 3 and 4!

2 years ago

Money Well Spent

Current mood: content
Category:Life

Months and Months ago I purchased a remote for my camera. I knew this was going to be a useful accessory due to the time old adage: The photographer is never photographed. I played with my new toy a couple of time at family events and what not.

Today the final verdict came in. On Christmas I had asked the family to get together and take a family portrait, which when you have 7 kids, plus spouses, plus children becomes quite the ordeal. Anyway I got everybody to get together at once and take a picture with my new remote, and my camera on a tripod.

Today, for Mothers day I gave my mom, and all moms in my family, the print of that picture. They loved it, but a little later my mom asked me who took the picture. I said I did. She said, wow. It doesn’t look like you have run into the frame. I responded with, that’s because I didn’t. I was able to pose the whole family, calmly walk in, and settle up and then take several pictures. The remote came with the option of a delay when I press the button. Allowing for time to palm it before the shot is taken. The final result, having the entire family calmly posed, looking as if someone else took the picture.

On the same note I did the same idea for a gift for Landis’ mom. During Christmas I made the family endure a shot of all of us via remote shot. When she opened her gift she went silent. I, being still new to the family, worried something was wrong, when I realized she was verclempt. She was so verclempt, I started getting all verclempt. She just couldn’t speak. Here I was thinking I had gone the cheap route, heres a pic I took of the family, and a cheap walmart frame, and she is touched to the point of tears. I knew she wanted the set I put together, and that’s why I did it, but I never expected this.
Lets see:

Camera: $600.00
Remote: $8.00
Print: $3.00
Cheap Frame: $3.00
Seeing your mother, and mother in law speechless: Priceless.

The Legacy Parkway

Current mood:Meh
Category: Travel and Places

From The Archives

We had a pretty jam packed weekend, after a few weeks of rain, snow, sun, rain, snow, sun bullshit. Today happened to finally fall on a sunny day but it was still a bit chilly, and we were tired. I wanted to something nature filled but poor Landis who just had a root canal was not up for vigorous hiking. I started looking for things to do, and ultimately decided to try the Legacy Parkway. From what I could tell from the internet it appeared it was a scenic drive with several quick pull outs of activities we could do.

What a load of horse shit. Don’t get me wrong, as compared to all the major freeways in this area, this one is quite scenic. (Much better going south than north) there are some sections that are quite pretty. But by what I read on the internet I thought there would be more… stops. Like what you see on most scenic byways. Oh that is my next point. I read that they are trying to classify the Legacy Parkway as a scenic byway. I don’t know about you, but when I think scenic byway, I don’t expect to see houses, industrial plants, or sewage treatment plants along the way. Also, towards the north end, it is merely a stones throw from i15? Wtf?

What I read on the internet the biggest claim to fame they boast is this serpentine walkway that goes over the freeway. Naturally I thought this might be cool so it was on my list of things to see. SO we’re driving down I see it, I say okay, look for the pull out….. nothing. No fucking pull out. Over a mile later there is an exit. Thinking okay, maybe we can drive back, no… no roads. So we hit the trail head area and there is a bike/hike trail to hike back to this thing. Yea, not interested in a long next to freeway trail today. But we did see this little pond covered in seagulls.

 
So we decided to walk down to it and check it out.

 
Not the band, but the actual nature occurrence. Here is where we startled them off.

 
Various shots of birds

We continued north up the road when I see Bountiful Lake/Pond. I call it Bountiful Lake/Pond because depending on the source it is either a pond or a lake. I think technically since it has various inlets of water and an outlet it can rightly be called a lake, but I’m not certain. So again I am looking for a pull out. Nothing for a good three miles. We take the next exit to see if it will take us back, and we get slightly lost. Okay, fuck it. We continue to the end of the parkway where it connects with i15 in Farmington. We hopped right back on to check it out from the other direction. Like I said, it is a lot prettier from this direction.

 
Random shot doing 55

Continuing south again I spot Bountiful Lake/Pond and then I see an access road following parallel to the parkway. Awesome, there must be an access point. A few miles further we come to the same place we stopped at before, and realize we could’ve followed this road to the Lake/Pond. For being a man made body of water it was quite impressive, although I can’t believe it is a popular fishing spot, with as the signs informed you can take 4 fish home. Who would want to? Its major source of water is the Jordan River… ew! Anyway, we decided to walk the trail around the lake and here is what we found.

 
The Lake

 
Some hungry geese

 
Ducks

 
Stream, stagnant pond, I donno but cool.

 
From the other end

 
Cattails, as far as the eye can see.

After this point the trail kind of ended at a gated fence to a dirt road. Not wanting to go back the long way we crossed the easily crossed gate, that I figured was here to prevent cars going onto the trail, and walked down the dirt road back to the car. Then we started hearing loud bangs. I thought oh shit, we may have entered private property and they are shooting warning shots. But, I’m not sure so we keep walking, hear some more, but we see cars pulled over on the side of the road. More shots. We get to the cars and there is another gate, and the trail resumes beyond that so we scramble back to the trail, while continuing to hear the shots.

Apparently someone had this bright idea of putting the police shooting range RIGHT NEXT to a family friendly pond, popular for fishing. Wooo go planning.
I apologize for the lack of photos to go with this week’s adventure, there just weren’t many great photo opportunities. Overall I give this adventure 3 squirrels out of 10. I granted one extra squirrel to account for the fact that perhaps I just didn’t research my trip well enough before heading out.

Ogden Canyon

Canyon,Photography,Waterfall,Nature