The northeast part of the park has few of the thermal features so prevalent in the rest of the park. This section is more mountainous than some of the other parts of the brush, with striking vistas of a wilderness of high peaks and deep valleys. Vegetation ranges from grasses and sagebrush to aspens and pines. All of the wildlife found in other parts of the park may also be seen here.
Our route for this video is shown in darker red on the map. The dotted line represents a one-way dirt road – well maintained, and a favorite of ours – that crosses the Blacktail Deer Plateau.
With each visit we generally make the whole Grand Loop Road. Doing the whole loop all at once makes for a long day – and it truly is impossible to see everything in a single day.
If you’re a camper, my recommendation would be to stay at either Madison Campground or Canyon Village Campground. These are in the middle part of the long sides of the Grand Loop Road. This will eliminate a lot of repetitive travel over the same areas. In 2011, we stayed at Fishing Bridge for a week. It was plenty of time to see everything. However, we spent a lot of time just in transit, much of it in the Hayden Valley or nearby, caught up in excruciatingly slow traffic, generally caused by buffalo – or people slowing down or stopping to see the buffalo.
If you want to stay in the park, whether you are camping or staying a lodge, make reservations very early. The reason we ended up at Fishing Bridge instead of one of our preferred campgrounds was that we didn’t plan far enough in advance. Six months in advance may not bee soon enough.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
During our 2007 Yellowstone visit, we made it to three thermal areas on mornings that were quite cool – Artists Point Pots, Norton Geyser Basin, and Mammoth Hot Springs. Cool mornings make for interesting photographs in thermal areas.
At Norton Geyser Basin, I was quite pleased with all of the wonderful photo opportunities that I had had during our walk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until we had made it all the way back to the parking lot when I noticed the message on the LCD screen, “No card in the camera.” This was worse than the old SLR cameras where you would discover after thinking you had shot a roll of film, only to discover that the film had not been engaged on the takeup spool properly and not a frame of film had been exposed. In the case of film, the pictures that were “lost” would be limited by the number of photos expected for a roll – for, me generally 24 or 36. Digital media, on the other hand, is limited by the capacity of the storage device, in this case an SD card. I probably had “snapped” 100 to 200 images that never got saved, because I had left the card in the computer.
I haven’t made that mistake since then. The other way that I have lost opportunities for pictures is when I forget to charge the camera’s battery. Now, with my new camera, I have a spare battery that is always charged before we set out. It certainly has been beneficial already, when, on at least two occasions, the battery in the camera ran out of juice when we were out doing, seeing, and picture taking.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
We probably visited the Old Faithful part of the park more often this trip than any place else. We saw Old Faithful erupt at least four times that I can think of. We also made dinner reservations for one evening. Another day we hiked up to an overlook where you can view the eruption. Unfortunately the eruption occurred before we got all the way to the overlook, but we were able to get a good view of it.
Old Faithful is, without a doubt, the most popular location in the park.
The Old Faithful Inn is a fascinating hotel over a hundred years old. We stayed there one time back in the late 70s in the fall.
Reservations for lodging and camping – for those campgrounds where reservations can be made – should be made as far as possible in advance. In 2011, we waited too long to decide on our travel plans and campsites were not available in the campgrounds we preferred. We had to settle for something else.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
Since we were camped near West Yellowstone, we traversed this part of the park several times. There are a lot of thermal features here, but we didn’t make it to all of them.
Some of the more popular destinations in the park get very crowded as the day goes by, even in September when the season is starting to wind down. One secret to getting in at those places without having to fight traffic and/or search for a parking spot is to get there early. It seems as though a lot a folks are late risers when on vacation – or they are just taking their time.
In Yellowstone, like many other places, early morning is a good time for photos, especially on chilly mornings in areas that abound in thermal features.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
Yesterday we had a bit of wind and rain. After the rain had passed, Karen spotted a rainbow through the skylight of the camper and I walked out to the highway to get to an open area where I could see it without trees, structures, or vehicles in the way. I ended up on the edge of the median of the southbound lane of US 50. The image is a composite of three photographs.
Nature is so amazing!
We’re traveling again. My contact job ended about 2 1/2 weeks ago and we left home 2 weeks ago. This time, I decided I was not going to try to keep up with the trip on a day to day basis. Each time I’ve done that, I got behind and ended up skipping some days.
I’ve taken a lot of pictures and video, including several fairly decent time-lapse sequences. Post processing is complete for about the first day and a half of our trip. I’ll be posting about the trip in more detail when we get back home and I’ll be doing it day-by-day to get the whole trip published in sequence.
We planned to be away from the internet quite a bit this trip. I pre-scheduled the videos that have been posted every three days or so through to the end of the trip. Karen is posting pretty much as we go on her blog, but she is also pre-posting for some of the times that we will be away from the internet.
Most of the time when we have internet access, we are camped in an RV park that has wireless and is near or in a town, like Grand Junction, Colorado, where we are now.
During our visit to Yellowstone National Park in 2007, we stayed in a campground near West Yellowstone, Montana, so, each day, no matter where we were going in the park, we traveled along the Madison River on our way in and, again, on our way back to the camper. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes, cloudy, but always a beautiful drive. One morning, the day I photographed the mists over the river, the temperature was several degrees below freezing – winter was just a few weeks around the corner.
The rest of the video slideshows from Yellowstone 2007 are arranged by regions of the park and will be posted here every three days over the next three weeks, followed by those from Grand Teton National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park.
Yellowstone National Park has long been a favorite of ours. I first visited in 1963, back when bears were a very common sight. Our first visits there as a family came in our second year of marriage, tent camping with a six month old with temperatures falling into the mid 30s at night. When we lived in Idaho from 1977 to 1980, we visited many times and have been back numerous times since we moved to Arkansas. We also spent a week in the park in 2010.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
Music: “When it Rains” by Anna Coogan and North19
track added using YouTube AudioSwap
While in Montana in September 2007, we had plans to stop in Lewistown to get set up with a satellite internet system. The installer, Ron, had an extra RV spot at his home for friends, complete with hookups and invited us to stay there for a few days. The satellite system was a new model and there were a few wrinkles in getting it set up right.
Ron was a member of an on-line RV forum I participated in. Retired, Ron did satellite system installs for other forum members at one price no matter how long it took.
While there, we shared supper with Ron and his wife several times in their house and once at the Black Bull Saloon and Steakhouse in Hobson. We also took in the 2007 Lewistown Chokecherry Festival and the What the Hay “hay art” contest that stretched over 21 miles in Judith Basin County between the towns of Hobson and Windham. As, well they took us on a couple of other drives out into the Montana countryside.
“What the Hay” is now also called the “Montana Bale Trail.”
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Lewistown, Chokecherry Festival, and Montana Bale Trail information:
In the late 80s, on our way home from a western vacation, we stopped for one night in Badlands National Park. The stop included a nighttime ranger guided walk.
Our 2007 trip was a daytime visit as we were camping in the Black Hills. It started out as a chilly blustery day, but, fortunately the weather improved as the day went on.
The badlands is a fascinating landscape of “sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States1.”
Whenever we go on a trip, I take a lot of pictures. Before I share any of the pictures, I post-process them – sort of like putting them through a digital darkroom – to remove flaws and adjust the saturation and contrast. It takes time, but I have been able to streamline my process somewhat.
I have just completed processing the last groups of images from the first big western trip we took after I retired in 2007. I’ve started creating videos using photos from that trip, with background music from YouTube audio swap. The first two of the series have been already posted:
Since I’ve finished with all the groups of images from the trip, the video for today is a montage of photographs from the trip; for the most part, one picture each day of our travels and explorations.
The audio track is Paul Mottram’s “Sidewalk Saunter.”
The northeast part of the park has few of the thermal features so prevalent in the rest of the park. This section is more mountainous than some of the other parts of the brush, with striking vistas of a wilderness of high peaks and deep valleys. Vegetation ranges from grasses and sagebrush to aspens and pines. All of the wildlife found in other parts of the park may also be seen here.
Ron was a member of an on-line RV forum I participated in. Retired, Ron did satellite system installs for other forum members at one price no matter how long it took.
While there, we shared supper with Ron and his wife several times in their house and once at the Black Bull Saloon and Steakhouse in Hobson. We also took in the 2007 Lewistown Chokecherry Festival and the