Wyoming Sept 2009
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Our trip to Wyoming to visit Rae Lynn and Marty and to let Kellie see Yellowstone for the first time. Our park plans were abbreviated by road work, a forest fire, Kellie's new kidney stones, and an early snow, but we still managed to have a good time. I've been studying HDR photography prior to this trip, so 40-ish of these shots have been processed as HDR and tonemapped. The results are quite nice.
Sunday - Alpine and Greys River
We arrived in Jackson Saturday evening, and Kellie captured a few sunset/dusk photos with my camera as we drove down the Snake River basin to Alpine. Spent the first and second nights with Rae Lynn and Marty. On Sunday, they took us out for an ATV ride into Bridger National Forest along the Greys River. The ride was about 35 miles round trip and took a few hours. It was tons of fun, and absoluely beautiful with all the fall color in the trees.
Monday - Driving to Yellowstone
Monday morning we started on our drive back up the Snake River to Jackson, through the Teton National Park, and into southern Yellowstone. The drive took us about 6 hours to reach West Thumb for all the stops we made along the way. After visiting the geyser basin we continued west toward Old Faithful and our first night's lodging in the Snow Lodge cabins.
Monday - West Thumb
The road between West Thumb and Lake Lodge was closed because of the Arnica forest fire. The fire had spread to 10,700 acres and was crossing the loop road and dropping burning trees on it. We were allowed to turn only far enough to go to the geyser basin. In spite of the fires, the air was clear and clean for our visit.
Tuesday - Old Faithful Area
Tuesday morning I got up early to check out the sunrise around Old Faithful. After breakfast, Kellie decided to sit at the Inn to see the geyser go off, and I took a hike on my own around Geyser Hill. After we got back together, we drove to Black Sand Basin and walked around a little, then just drove around to the other geysers in the area without much stopping and walking.
Tuesday - Driving Around
We stopped for a picnic lunch at the Nez Perce picnic area. We had a pretty view of the stream and a few birds flying around hoping for leftovers. We continued to just before Madison and looped back on Firehole Canyon drive to see the falls. The we headed as far down the road toward Norris until we hit the roadblock for the construction beyond the Tuff Cliffs. We headed back and out the west entrance road to West Yellowstone, then decided to continue our drive down into Idaho before looping back into Montana along Hebgen Lake.
Wednesday - Driving Back
The snow that we expected started around 5am on Wednesday. We decided to drive back to Alpine through Idaho rather than the slower roads and construction in Yellowstone. The snow fell all day, but generally didn't start sticking except in the higher altitudes. This made the drive across Jackson Pass particularly treacherous: slick roads, 10% grade, and lots of winding turns down the mountain made for a white-knuckle experience. We were rewarded for our perserverance by spotting a Bald Eagle at the bottom of the pass.
Thu and Fri - Alpine and Palisades Lake
Thursday was a cold, lazy day. We stayed indoors for the most part and visited. Friday we had to pack up to leave early the next morning, so we were staying the night back in Jackson near the airport. We went out on the afternoon for a drive back into Idaho around the Palisades Reservoir. After an early dinner, we said our goodbyes and drove up to Jackson and took a detour up to Teton Village and Jackson Hole before returning to our hotel.