Rockies and Great Plains roadtrip, 2015 part 3: Yellowstone (day 2)

Monday, July 27, 2015

TL;DR version: Second of two days at Yellowstone National Park, taking a morning photography tour and a wildlife excursion in the afternoon.

Today's theme songs:

• "Photograph" (Ringo Starr) for the photo safari
• "Wild Mountain Honey" (Steve Miller Band) for the evening trip

Weather report: 30-60% chance of storms, high 61, low 30 (brrrr!)

Monday I had signed up for two tours, first a 5-hour photo safari led by a guide in the morning (6-11am) and then a wildlife excursion late afternoon (they said it's the habitat for bears, wolves, elk, bison, pronghorn, eagles, and bighorn sheep).

The photo tour was described this way. I took the tour leaving from the Old Faithful Inn.

From early morning bison and elk whose breath condenses on the cool air, to the sun shining through the vapor clouds above thermal streams, to the rainbow only visible for a few minutes each day, and only from a single vantage point, in the mist of the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park is a paradise for shutterbugs. Your host, a driver-guide who is also a professional photographer, will tailor the tour to the interests, skill levels, and equipment of the group to create a day of memorable photographs for all. One of our safaris originates from Old Faithful Inn, and takes in thermal areas and wildlife north of Old Faithful Village; the other departs Lake Yellowstone Hotel to visit wildlife-rich Hayden Valley and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. For both, the goal of this five-hour tour is intriguing photographic opportunities coupled with (for those who’d like it) instruction on how to better use your camera means a limited number of in-depth stops will be the order of the day. For a fantastic outing for you and your camera, sign up for the Picture Perfect Photo Safari!

Black Sands

Firehole Spring

White Dome Geyser

Firehole Canyon Drive and Firehole Falls

Biscuit Basin

The evening excursion wouldn't leave until after 1600, giving me plenty of time for sightseeing after lunch. Since I was leaving the park early Tuesday morning, I got lucky and finally managed to get a room at the Roosevelt Lodge in a Rough Rider cabin at the northeast side of the park - that would cut a couple hours off my drive than if I was leaving from West Yellowstone, and Tuesday was planned to be a very long drive anyway (around 14 hours). So I checked out of the hotel and kept my luggage in the car for the day (spoiler alert: nothing happened to it), planning to head to the lodge after the wildlife tour ended around 2015.

The main area I wanted to see that I hadn't seen yet was the Grand Prismatic, part of the Midway Geyser Basin. It was kind of cloudy and the steam made it hard to see much, unfortunately, but what I could see was spectacularly colorful.

My one major error came when I decided to take a cutoff road that went along the cliff overlooking the Gibbon River and the Virginia Cascade. This was a smaller one-way road off the main road.

At one point near the Cascade, I got out of the car to take some pictures - and the car door shut and locked, with my phone inside and the car still running. Here's where I was, on that white road segment below the blue segment:

It took over an hour for someone to grab a park ranger and send him my way; not everyone stopped for me, and not everyone who said they'd find a ranger did so. I had my jacket (and camera) so I wasn't cold, and when the ranger came up he said that I was lucky that he got to me before a wrecker did, he uses the slim-jim to open the door for free while a wrecker would have charged me $100. I made it out to Canyon Village with about 30 minutes to spare.

The evening wildlife excursion was made up of two tour buses, leaving from either Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel or Canyon Lodge, whichever was closer. I chose the Canyon Lodge bus, leaving at 1615.

The single best place to watch the wild things in Yellowstone is Lamar Valley, habitat for bears, wolves, elk, bison, pronghorn, eagles, and bighorn sheep. Most of these animals are crepuscular – most active at dawn and dusk. Dawn is tough when you’re on a well-earned vacation, but we invite you to join us for a trip to Secluded Valley any evening you’d like on the Lamar Valley Wildlife Excursion. Departing from the Lake and Canyon areas, you’ll arrive near dusk and spend an hour seeing what presents itself, before retracing your route back to your evening’s lodgings. While we can’t promise which wild animals will appear (they’re wild, so we all take our chances), we can promise your interpretive guide will have great stories to tell about the wildlife and the larger story of why they still abound here, in the most wild part of the Wild West.

Tower Falls

Little America Plains

Little America

After the tour, I had dinner at Canyon Lodge since I was right there, and then drove up to the Roosevelt Lodge. It had started to snow, which I wasn't really fond of driving in since I live in the South, and then I got confused following the GPS map and took a wrong turn that started me going up a mountain on a one-way road. I finally realized I was not in the right location and had to slowly back up down the hill to the road (up and back took at least a half hour in total) and then on to the lodge. By the time I got there they were closing up the front desk (though I would have still been able to check in had they been gone) and I got to my room, which was a cozy little cabin with a wood-burning stove to heat it, a couple of beds, a couple of desks, a sink, and most important of all, electricity with which to charge my camera batteries. (The shared bathroom was in another building.)

Here's the map of the day. Unfortunately I didn't think to bring my Garmin GPS with me to trace out my daily route, but the day started at West Yellowstone at the green pin at far left, then the Old Faithful Inn at the red pin, then I drove up 191 and east on 89 until I crossed over (and you can see the road right in the middle where I got locked out). The green pin in the middle is Canyon Lodge, and the one at the top right is Tower Falls, and the Roosevelt Lodge is right nearby. To the east of that is the Lamar Valley.