| The Plan | Badlands | Nearing Yellowstone | Grand Tetons 1 | Grand Tetons 2 | Magnificent Sunrise | Milky Way |
| Old Faithful Animation | Geysers 1 | Geysers 2 | Lower Falls | Buffalo | Scenic Vistas |
( If you think text is dead, then click on the menu above to skip this very informative and interesting soliloquy and start my visual Yellowstone Trip )
Yellowstone is an exquisitely beautiful place of past and ongoing geologic history, and of tremendous diversity of flora and fauna - all situated about 7500 feet above sea level. It is like no other place on earth. Everything that is there walks among the remnants of a volcano which violently erupted about 610,000 years ago. Now, a few miles below the surface, is a lava dome that is trying to push through to the surface. Because of this, a part of Yellowstone - the Yellowstone Lake and surrounding areas - are slowly rising. Someday, it will erupt again. It's exhilarating walking through an area that is still volcanically active. Maybe not in producing lava flows, but hot magma pockets heat water that turn into geysers and sulphur smelling hot pools teaming with thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria, and bubbling mud pots.
A trip to Yellowstone requires lots of planning. I started mine in January for a week's stay in June. If you're only passing through, or staying for a couple of days, then the available park literature should suffice. However, spending a week there is the best way to come away with a good chunk of the 'readily accessible' Yellowstone experience. There are plenty of trails, backwoods areas and unseen vistas that certainly deserve return visits. Yellowstone is truly a huge, natural wonder. For me, I was planning on photographing as much as I could using 35mm film, standard video, digital stills and MPEG format movies. Also, I wanted to capture the aural splendor of Yellowstone, so I included a MiniDisc recorder and two good microphones in my tool bag mix for stereo recordings. Additionally, the term 'Stereo' was going to creep into my photography endeavors. Using a digital camera, I intended to create Left-Right stereo image pairs for viewing at home and on the web. Lastly, my intentions were not only to have high quality audio/video media for home use, but also media suitable for use on my website to share with others.
In January, I made my reservations for June because available rooms can go rather quickly. Also, the first week in June is just before the tourist rush, and just after most roads and accommodations open up. Since I was staying for 7 days, and because of my background in biology and sciences in general, I also wanted to research for, and glean, as much information as I could on the wildlife I could expect, how the geology of Yellowstone was formed, what sights are available to see and what, plus when, to photograph Yellowstone scenery. My purpose for going was to make a photographic 'safari' out of the trip; to come to a real-world appreciation of how nature 'lives' in this wilderness; and of course, to get away for awhile!
If you stay within Yellowstone at one of the lodges, be sure to compare features of all of them for what you want. For example, bath accommodations vary greatly - from none, to public, to private for each room.
I heartily recommend the resources I list here for you to research for your own trip. I'm not endorsing these or saying these are the best to use, but I did find them very useful for my needs.
Books
Windows Into the Earth - The Geologic History of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks by Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel, publisher Oxford Press. A superb overview of the geologic processes involved, explained in understandable terms, plus an included driving itinerary that takes you to the geology mentioned in the book.
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks - a general information and touring guide, publisher Frommer.
Wyoming by Nathaniel Burt, publisher Fodor - If you're traveling throughout Wyoming, this is a good book which points out great historical and cultural topics to visit.
Photographer's Guide to Yellowstone and the Tetons - by Joseph K. Lange, publisher Stackpole Books. The title says is all, and tells you where to go, what time to be there, where to stand, and what to look for.
Scenic Driving Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks - by Susan Springer Butler, publisher Falcon Guides. If you just want a drive through tour, this a good book to follow.
Websites
National Geographic - type in 'Yellowstone' in the search box, and enjoy!
National Park Digital Guide Map Coverage
National Park Service - Experience Your America
The Yellowstone Backcountry Page - Home
Yellowstone National Park - The Official Home Page
Yellowstone National Park (National Park Service)
Yellowstone National Park Net Online Travel Guide
CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - for Ticks, giardia, etc.
Sky and Telescope for star charts
Software
Assuming you might take a laptop with you, these are some suggestions on how I used mine in my travel plans. I also used it to connect to the net and obtain more travel information, check e-mail, etc. If you don't plan to take one, I still would find the software handy for trip planning.
Use one of the many street and atlas programs that show highways, city streets, etc. I used Microsoft Map Point. If you're into astronomy, then load up an astronomy program to show off the night sky. On a clear night, it certainly is worth star gazing! Map Point was very helpful because it listed many hotels and motels along my route, along with their phone numbers. I changed my route coming back while I was at Yellowstone, and using Map Point got me enough information to contact any motel along the new route, and let me plot my new route, too.
I took a lot of 'gear' with me for a week's stay. Better to be over prepared, then under! Since it was my first time there, I had no idea what to expect, so I probably over did it a little. A little advice, though, is to try out everything first before you take it, to make sure it works. Think about how you will be using a particular tool, and experiment before going to iron out any bugs you encounter. You may find you need to upgrade to the latest tool that works for your needs, or just replace the batteries.
I took a multi-outlet power strip with me, which was a good idea. The wall outlets were limited, and I needed to run the laptop and recharge batteries.
For the most part, the GPS hooked into the laptop I really didn't need, but it did come in handy for finding motels I made reservations at within a large city, seeing what my current elevation was, and if I got off the beaten path, finding my way back. Most roads are well marked, and directions are easy since there aren't that many roads in Wyoming. Which, unlike Iowa, has a road, gravel or paved, every one mile or so apart no matter which direction you go!
I used the PDA mostly to do voice notes, and keep track of gas and mileage.
When it came to organizing the film, I made labels to stick on each film roll. Each was numbered and dated, with a brief description added when used. I also picked up before the trip empty processing envelopes from the store, labeled each one with my name and such (it beats handwriting on each one!) and numbered them also to match each film roll number, along with the film roll description.
I plotted the trip route and scenic stops using Microsoft MapPoint 2002, which was excellent when it came to getting to a particular photo destination using the laptop coupled with the GPS receiver. Next time, however, I believe I will use one of the newer PDA's that are GPS capable. The smaller size would be more convenient. The information gleaned from the aforementioned books and websites were a great help in determining where to mark them on the map.
Any digital images I took were loaded into the laptop from Flash Cards, and backed up to a portable USB powered 20 gig hard drive.
I installed some of the same software onto the laptop as I use on the desktop in order to get some imaging work done after the day's end. Did it work out that way? No - I was way too tired after a day of sight seeing to even care!
When I got back, I had 40 rolls of exposed film. I used the batch scanning feature of the Nikon scanner, and just fed it strips of negatives, one roll at a time. I (it, actually) saved each image as a TIFF file, and each roll has its own directory. I used Photoshop's Batch Process and made a Contact Sheet of each roll from the scanned negatives, which I printed out. I placed the negatives into archival negative sleeve sheets that fit into a three ring binder, and I also placed the contact sheets with each negative sheet. The scanned negatives were numbered to correspond with the negative number, along with the name of the subject, and Photoshop used this file name to label each thumbnail image on the contact sheet for easy indexing. Lastly, I burned the each roll of scanned images and contact sheet to a CD, one roll per CD, labeled it, and placed them in the same three ring binder. The files were scanned in at a little larger than full frame, 8-bit color depth, saved as TIFF's at 2900 PPI, which resulted in approximately 34 megabyte file sizes.
This part of the trip didn't come to be as I fully hoped. Yellowstone, at the time I visited, was an amazingly quiet place. For the most part, the sounds I wanted really would have been bird calls, but because the forest has not repopulated itself yet with vegetation, birds and small furry animals were in very short supply. No doubt they moved to more lush areas where the food supplies were plentiful. Much of the terrain is repetitious for any really good varied movies, even though it certainly is still very beautiful, even in it's state of first growth succession of new plants. Hills that remained in the sun's shadow, or very rocky, or received less rainfall than the side over the hill remained very barren of plant life.
What I did take with me was a Sony MiniDisc recorder with two Radio Shack omni-directional microphones (made by Shure) to record sounds. For those of you who do outdoor recordings, and have to deal with longer than necessary cords and connections, I recommend making a visit to www.markertek.com for cabling needs. I found a Y-adapter that went from two BNC connectors to one stereo mini-plug, and was only about 6 inches long! Very affordable, too. Before that, all I could find were very long lengths of cable, and all I needed to go was about 3 feet at the most, from microphones to MiniDisc recorder. A shorter cable cuts down on noise, any R-F pickup and signal loss.
I took most images using the Nikon 35mm film camera. The digital cameras worked fine, but the lighting conditions were more challenging, as was capturing the more subtle colors when they were showing so the Nikon was better equipped to handle that: color film has a greater latitude than digital cameras do. Also, everything was either way far away, or very close and huge, or just far away AND huge!! So, swapping lenses out from wide angle to telephoto was a must.
I didn't get that many stereo-photographs by using the Olympus digital camera. Like I mentioned already, the scenery was somewhat repetitious, and stereo views of trees only go so far. and the stereo effect can be lost on distant shots.
"My Gosh, there're stars!" I looked up on my third night there (which was the first clear night there for me!), and saw again the Milky Way. I had not really seen the Milky Way since the early 60's from my backyard as a child, long before air and light pollution became a nuisance as it is today. Even though I could take a trip to the country in Iowa and get away from most of that pollution, in Yellowstone there's about 7500 feet less of atmosphere between me and space, and cooler air is always better to view the celestial bodies through, and Yellowstone has cool nights.
The air, and I can't get over this, was so much fresher than in Iowa (and probably most heavily settled areas of this country!). Far less haze, to absolutely none; I sneezed only a couple of times while there (I'm always sneezing here!); my face didn't feel gritty at the end of the day; I did get winded the first few days at the higher altitude, but I noticed if I was lying in bed, or just resting, I'd take a full, deep breath every so often. I guess it was my body's way of acclimating itself to the higher altitude, and was gauging the density of oxygen in the atmosphere. Still, higher altitude beats high humidity any day!
The fires of 1988 were still evident, showing the remains of burned lodge pole pines throughout most of the traveled and viewable (from the roads) portion of the park. These lodge pole pines will stand for tens of years, finally toppling over from decay which will then provide essential nutrients to the young, new forest. The saplings were of varying heights, from 3 feet to about 10 feet. Other places were still very barren of any vegetation. Usually, these areas were on the shaded portion of a hill, or on very steep, mostly rocky and dry hills. I would guess that a visitor seeing Yellowstone before the fires could not see very far into the hills at all, due to the density of trees. Now, you can see a great distance, observe the contour of the land, and see how much sunlight actually reaches the ground, unfettered by adult pines. Additionally, the air exchange was no doubt greater. I had many people tell me that Yellowstone smells of sulphur and bubbling pools. I encountered none of that at all. The only time I did was when I was standing right in the steam release of a hot pool or bubbling mud pots. Other than that, the air was very fresh and clean. It will take another 100 years or so for this new growth forest to make a considerable difference in the look of the land and its effects on the local environment..
Visit the souvenir shops and pick up some VHS or DVD movies of Yellowstone. They will depict parts of Yellowstone you may not have visited, and times of the year you probably won't get to see. These are reasonably priced. Other touristy stuff is over-priced, of course. Any food I bought there, grocery or prepared, was always very good and fresh. I was impressed. The fancy restaurants are expensive, but the hot-food lines are reasonable.
I wouldn't take as much food as I did. There are places all over Yellowstone to get food, plus on the trip there. Super Wal-Marts, Super Targets and every gas stop has supplies for food and sustenance. I would still take a small cooler for in-between the food stops, though, and the day trips. I'd get any film developed while I was there, rather than taking it back with me. It takes up less space, and you don't have to worry about heat damage to exposed film (unexposed you still want to be mindful of.) All of my shots came out perfect (I think that's a first!) but if I had them developed while there, I would have the chance for any do-overs if needed. There are ATM machines all over, everybody took credit cards, and cell phone coverage was good for the most part. Some of the more in-the-middle-of-nowhere places were lacking coverage, and the undulating hills has an effect on reception. So, if you find a good spot to chat, stop, because it will disappear over the next hill! When you do get into the less populated areas, get gas often, because it could be an easy 100 miles to the next gas station.
I don't have satellite XM radio in the car, but if you're someone who loves to listen to the radio while driving, there are very few stations to choose from when you get out into the less populated areas, so XM radio may come in handy for you. If I made more and longer road trips, I'd probably spring for XM radio.
I took a small LCD pocket color TV with me, but in Yellowstone I could not pick up any TV signals where I was staying at. So, consider other entertainment if you need to.
I was very happy with the results that Kodak Royal Gold and Fuji Superia films gave me. I bought my photo supplies from www.bhphoto.com . They had the best prices, even with shipping added in, and the film was dated to way into next year, so I knew it was fresh. Kodak Royal Gold 400 and 800 film has less grain then Fuji 400 and 800 does. Fuji 1600 film is pretty nice, considering its speed. The majority of my pictures are taken with Kodak Royal Gold 200.
I'd explore more. A week may be long enough for Yellowstone and the Grand Teton, but there's so much more to see outside the boundaries of Yellowstone into the surrounding states, and Wyoming itself, too.
If you've gotten this far, you're an intrepid reader and no doubt much wiser than earlier, so go ahead and start the tour of my Yellowstone Trip.
| The Plan | Badlands | Nearing Yellowstone | Grand Tetons 1 | Grand Tetons 2 | Magnificent Sunrise | Milky Way |
| Old Faithful Animation | Geysers 1 | Geysers 2 | Lower Falls | Buffalo | Scenic Vistas |
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