Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park
Wow!! That's the main thing that comes to mind when I reflect on the past 4-6 weeks. I can't say thank you enough for voting for my image in the Discovery Channel's Snapshots of North America contest. For those of you who had not heard, WE WON! Most of you will be surprised to learn that my wife Leslie and I have already taken the trip which was the grand prize for the contest. Here I will share with you a little about the trip.
On August 26, 2013, I received an email and then a phone call from Promotion Mechanics, informing me that I had won the contest. Since it was a couple of weeks beyond the date that the winner was supposed to be announced, I had all but given up. I was informed that I had until August 31, 2014 to decide whether to go to Yellowstone, Glacier, Shenandoah, or Moab, UT. I knew right off that I was going to choose between Glacier and Yellowstone. We choose Yellowstone. But I really wanted to go in September for the Elk and Moose rut. By the end of the week I couldn't stand it any longer so I checked to see when Leslie may be able to take off for a week. We settled on the week of September 15 and contacted the travel agent I had to go through to see if we could make it work. Although I wanted to spend a few days in Yellowstone and a few in Jackson Hole, there were no openings in Yellowstone, so we opted to stay the whole time in Jackson Hole.
We were scheduled to fly out of Atlanta on Sunday, September 15 at 8:15 a.m., so we left after lunch on the 14th to go to the Georgia Aquarium and spend the night in Atlanta. The Aquarium was good and the Dolphin Tales show was excellent.
The next morning we left Atlanta and arrived in Salt Lake City four hours later. We picked up a rental car and began the 4 1/2 hour drive up to Jackson Hole via Idaho Falls. After arriving in Jackson Hole, we checked into our room at The Lodge at Jackson Hole. It was getting late and had been a long day, so we went out to dinner and then settled down for the night. We had scheduled a 10 mile river raft ride with Solitude Floats for 9:30 the next morning so I let Leslie sleep in and I got up early to go the Moulton Barns (aka Morman Row) to take some sunrise images of one of the barns.
The float trip was 10 miles (no whitewater) along a very scenic section of the Snake River. We had a beautiful morning with some great scenery. We were fortunate to see some bald eagles along the route and while taking some pictures of an immature eagle I luckily caught an image of a mature eagle attacking him for the fish he had on the sand/rock bar.
After we ate lunch we rode around the park for a while just enjoying the beautiful scenery. Later, we observed several people standing on a ridge overlooking the Gros Ventre river (pronounce grow vant) where I had heard the moose liked to hang out. When you see several photographers with big lenses standing around, that is the place to stop. People had seen a bull moose and cow out there several hours earlier that had bedded down in the willow trees. We joined the others waiting for them to come back out. It was about 2 or 2.5 hours and some people had lost patience and left, but then the cow stepped out. We were losing light real quick and it didn't appear the bull was going to step out before dark and as I started to leave, someone saw him so we turned around to set up and get a few shots. With the low light the pictures are grainy, but it was fun to see him do the lip curling that we see of whitetail deer.
September 17, 2013- We wanted to take a trip into Yellowstone and rain was expected today and tomorrow, so we decided to chance going today. We heard that there was a bison kill in the Lamar Valley on which grizzly bears and wolves had been feeding. That is in the northeast part of the park, 3 hours away. We left at 3:30 from the hotel to get there at first light. Let me say right here that Leslie is a real trooper for going with me on these excursions. Early on I knew we were going to have a bad day as far as weather was concerned because of the lightning show up north of us. We arrived in the Lamar Valley a little after daylight and seeing the cars pulled off the road, knew we were at the right place for the kill. From a rise next to the road I could see off in the distance a grizzly sow and three cubs on the kill. Light was horrible and a storm was coming in, so I didn't get to take many pictures and they aren't good, but it was interesting to see.
We didn't see much more except the scenery and rain but it was a good trip none the less.
September 18, 2013- I let Leslie sleep in this morning after the long day yesterday. I got up with the intention of going to Oxbow Bend to take some sunrise pictures of a beautiful scene in GTNP. Once again, however, the weather didn't cooperate. Upon arriving at Oxbow Bend, the fog was very thick and it was drizzling rain. I opted to go through the road from Jackson Lake to Moose to look for elk. I hadn't gone too far when I could make out some elk in the meadows. It was still a little dark, so I rode down further to see what was out this morning, waiting on the light to get better. After spotting some more elk, I looked through the binoculars and saw that one was a nice bull with a harem of cows. I stopped to get the camera out and set up under the hatch back of the car to stay out of the rain. After taking some pictures of this group, I drove further down and found another large bull with his harem. Younger bulls were around both of these large bulls, trying their best to woo some of the cows over to them. I spent a lot of time with this second bull and got some really great shots.
I will try to get a video of this bull working the brush uploaded to the sight soon. It is on my facebook page. After the elk wandered off out of range, I drove to the area where the moose were usually hanging out. I found a group of people not far from the place we saw the moose on Monday. There was a bull laying down and you could see a very small portion of him in the brush. I only had to wait about a half hour before he stood up and stretched, circled around once and laid back down in the open. The locals have named him Elvis.
There were some twigs in the way and since he had just settled, I decided to go pick up Leslie to get some lunch and shop around in Jackson. Later in the afternoon, we went back to the moose area and found a group of photographers in another location. It wasn't too long before the moose came out in full view. We thought he might come out and cross the river like I had hoped, but he ended up staying on the other side.
September 19, 2013- We had a photo safari scheduled this morning with Paul Martin Safari's. He picked us up from the hotel at 6:15 and we discussed whether we should look for elk or moose. Since I haven't really gotten any morning shots of moose and they were his favorite subject, we opted to go look for them. We quickly saw two large shadows in the meadow, which turned out to be a cow and her calf. It was really still too dark for pictures so we eased a little further down the road. Soon there was a bull walking toward the highway and we quickly got out of the van to capture what images we could in the low light. After he crossed the road behind us, we realized we were actually quite lucky in that we had a beautiful full moon setting over the mountains as a backdrop for the moose. This bull was named Shadow because he was a smaller bull that followed the others around. It actually quite fit for this moment.
After we could no longer follow and shoot Shadow, we found a cow and her twin calves around the campground and took a few shots of them and then the fog just seemed to come out of nowhere. Driving to the other end of the campground we found a few people walking toward us and soon discovered they were trying to get ahead of a bull. This turned out to be one the locals had named Gaston. He was walking in a hurry and it was difficult to stay ahead of him, but we did get a few images that I like. After Paul dropped us off at 10:00, Leslie and I got a lunch and then rode around the park and stopped at Jenny Lake. We took a boat ride across the lake to hike a mile to Hidden Falls. After getting back into the car and heading to the hotel, we came across a bull elk and his harem. Leslie finally got a chance to watch and hear the elk bugle. He was pretty perturbed at the younger bull a few hundred yards away, and kept trying to push his ladies in the opposite direction.
Friday- September 20, 2013- Well, it's our last day here and we have to check out by 11:00. We got up to go take sunrise pictures of the mountain range this morning. I knew we could go to Oxbow Bend for good sunrise pictures, but it was on the very north end of the park, so I opted to stop near the Triangle X Ranch where Paul had shown me the day before.
We arrived back at the hotel around 9:00 where I ate the first real breakfast of the week. Once we checked out of the hotel and left, we took a scenic route along the Pioneer Scenic Highway back toward Salt Lake City for our return flight home. Here are a few pictures from that ride.
Again, thank you all for your votes to help us win this trip and my deepest thanks to the Discover Channel for sponsoring this event. And I want to especially thank my wife, Leslie, for being a great sport with my obsession and accompanying me on these excursions. We have both been truly blessed by God, and I encourage all of you to "Have a Blast While it Last".
God Bless You All,
Sidney and Leslie
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalms 19:1