Howdy! After 1007 miles of driving on 1.5 hours of sleep, I arrived at Grand Teton around 6:30am Mountain Time. I did some early morning photography with peaks of sunshine, much to my surprise, from Signal Mountain. I then headed into Yellowstone and photographed Moose Falls, Old Faithful, and Gibbons Falls on my way to Mammoth to meet up with Jay. I arrived in Mammoth around 1:30pm or so, to strong thunderstorms, believe it or not. The temperature dropped from 57 to 46°F from that storm, with close CGs! Anyway, these storms provided some snow atop 9500 foot peaks west of Mammoth, which was fairly pretty. Also, I ran into some snowy ground driving through the 9500 foot pass very early this morning on my approach to Teton. Tomorrow’s plan is highly dependant on the weather, and I may linger close to Mammoth if it’s fairly bleak outside.
and do not necessarily represent those of official National Weather Service forecast products,
therefore read and enjoy at your own risk and edification!"
September 15, 2006
Yellowstone Day One: Getting my feet wet
September 14, 2006
Yellowstone Day 0: Departure from Dodge
I decided to leave right after work earlier today to get up into Yellowstone prior to the Friday night-Saturday snow. It looks like 3-6" over a large part of Yellowstone is possible… with isolated near 1 foot perhaps in higher elevations. It’s 10pm MDT at the time of this writing, sitting at a Days Inn parking lot in Laramie, WY. I’ll drive off and on through the night in between power naps, expecting to reach Teton by just after sunrise probably. Should probably see some wet snow mixing in with rain showers by midday when I approach Mammoth. More later, time to get back on the road…
September 13, 2006
Yellowstone Snowstorm Forecast
From the NWS Riverton, WY office — mentioned in their Area Forecast Discussion on Wednesday afternoon:
FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY...AS THE ENERGETIC UPPER LOW MOST LIKELY FROM WESTERN WYOMING INTO NORTHEAST WYOMING...THERE SHOULD BE A LARGE SWATH OF PRECIPITATION BEGINNING TO WRAP AROUND THIS SYSTEM. I HAVE HIT THE NORTH HALF WITH LIKELY POPS FOR FRIDAY NIGHT AND EVEN A BIGGER AREA SATURDAY AS WRAPAROUND FURTHER IMPROVES THE CHANCES IN AREAS LIKE THE WIND RIVER BASIN. DETAILS ARE STILL UNCERTAIN BUT OVERALL BIG PICTURE IS SLOWLY COMING INTO FOCUS. HAVE STARTED SNOW LEVELS FAIRLY HIGH THURSDAY EVENING BUT LOWERED THEM TO AS LOW AS 8000 FEET IN YELLOWSTONE BY FRIDAY MORNING RISING TO AROUND 10000 FEET IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. HOWEVER...IT IS POSSIBLE IN THE SOUTHWEST THAT TEMPERATURES COULD COOL MORE THAN EXPECTED AND LOWER SNOW LEVELS IN THAT AREA LOWER THAN SOUNDINGS OR H7 TEMPERATURES WOULD INDICATE. ON FRIDAY...SNOW LEVELS WILL GENERALLY BE BETWEEN 9000 AND 10000 FEET.
THE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUMULATION DOES EXIST FROM THIS SYSTEM ESPECIALLY ACROSS THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS FRIDAY NIGHT AND SATURDAY. HOWEVER...EVEN OTHER AREAS IN THE WESTERN MOUNTAINS COULD SEE DECENT SNOWFALL...ESPECIALLY THE WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS AND ABSAROKA MOUNTAINS. STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER UPDATES ON THIS MAJOR CHANGE TO COLD AND UNSETTLED WEATHER.
My plans are to either depart around 1pm from Dodge City tomorrow afternoon and try to make it up to Yellowstone as fast, and safely as possible, taking a few 2 hour power naps along the way… -or- leave as originally planned very early friday morning and plan on my original stop in Dubois. I’m almost leaning more towards the Dubois scenario, because they might see as much snow as Mammoth given the elevation, and I love snow 
Then I’ll stay another night in Dubois Saturday night and hopefully by Sunday I can start my way to Yellowstone and make Sunday a nice little snowy landscape shoot most of the day. If the sun can come back out Sunday, it could be spectacular.
September 12, 2006
Departure for Yellowstone: Decisions, Decisions!
Significant snows expected for Yellowstone Friday & Saturday!
Well, hmmm. This first snowstorm of the season for the northern Rockies is really throwing a monkey-wrench into my itenerary — at least the first couple days of the trip. The significant Pacific storm is still on track, and now there are indications that a subtropical jet stream interaction may enhance precipitation and even start the event sooner. A snow event that evolves faster spells trouble for me, becuase the absolute earliest I could possibly make it to Mammoth Hot Springs would be early afternoon Friday. The new 13/00z run of the NAM model, which is notoriously fast and weaker with storms 3 days out, is certainly scaring me! It has 700mb temps falling quickly below 0°C over the Teton/Yellowstone region early Friday morning. This system is strong and cold, there are no two ways about it. The Riverton NWS office is really playing this one soft so far, according to their point&click forecast on the web earlier this afternoon. I think all locations of Yellowstone above 7000 feet will see any rain change over to snow early Friday (which is pretty much the entire park, except for the Gardner River valley in the far north-central portion of the park at Mammoth Hot Springs, Mammoth = approx 6400 feet), again if the NAM is anywhere close to representing what will happen.
In order to even make it to Mammoth I have to traverse the entire park from south to north, crossing at least a couple 8500+ passes. They will certainly be snow early Friday if the new NAM is right. This is just too close for comfort. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it before heavy snow ensues. Here are the scenarios playing in my mind right now… there’s 3 of them:
1) Original itenerary departure of early Friday morning, arrival Dubois, WY by mid-evening. Anticipation being snow-bound Saturday and essentially spend the day in Dubois with really nothing much to do. Snow-covered and even road closures look to be a pretty good bet. Spend a 2nd night at Dubois (Sat. Night), and assuming the storm ends Late Saturday, begin the drive west to Teton Sunday morning for snowscape photography. Late Sunday I’ll head into Yellowstone.
2) Depart immediately after work Thursday (after hopefully leaving early from work at 2pm), and drive non-stop, essentially, to Laramie. Stay at a cheap Motel 6 in Laramie for about 6 hours, then depart at 5 or 6am and make a beeline drive to Mammoth, arriving sometime early-mid afternoon. * This is my preferred scenario only if the expected heavy snow holds off until late afternoon or early evening.
3) I just thought about this one not too long ago, and I’m actually leaning more towards this scenario given the scare from the new NAM. Delay #1 scenario by one full day. Instead of leaving Dodge early Friday morning, I’ll leave Saturday morning… arriving in Dubois Saturday evening… then get up very early for morning snowy landscape photography at Grand Teton, given the storm is over by then and skies begin to clear. I really didn’t want to blow a day of my vacation (Friday), but by doing so, this would allow me to chase what looks to be a potentially great dryline supercell day in western Kansas very close to Dodge City, perhaps. Interesting, eh?!
Stay tuned…
September 11, 2006
Yellowstone Trip Details
September 15-25, 2006
At the end of this week, I will begin my journey northwest to Yellowstone! I will be leaving Dodge City early Friday morning, probably around 4am. I will be staying Friday Night at the Super 8 motel in Dubois, WY, which is about 60 miles southeast of Teton NP. I talked with Jay last week, and he’s staying at Mammoth Hot Springs on the north side of the park. I will likely meet up with Jay sometime late Saturday. I have already planned out a lot of what I want to shoot in Yellowstone, and each day’s shoot will depend on the weather. Sunny days with deep blue skies will be reserved for photographing geothermal features such as hot spring pools, geysers, mudpots, etc. Sunrise/sunset light will be reserved for grand landscape type stuff, more than likely. I know for sure I want to get Lower and/or Upper Falls in dawn light from Inspiration Point or Artist Point. So definitely one morning for that! Cloudy days will be reserved for waterfall photography, mainly the long-exposure, silky composition waterfall shots. Cloudy days work best for that kind of shooting, as well as dawn/dusk light. Speaking of cloudy days…..
I just looked at the GFS model, and Saturday the 16th, my first day in the park, looks like a potential mess. The first bigtime fall storm looks to be developing late in the week in the Pacific Northwest. This sucker just looks big! It is still 5 days out, but there seems to be strong support for a snowstorm in Yellowstone on or around Saturday. I was planning Saturday the 16th to be my "survey" day, after a sunrise shoot at Grand Teton NP. I’ll have to watch this closely, and my plans may change quite a bit for my first few days of the trip…including perhaps the possibility of leaving even earlier Friday morning… like 2 or 3am and driving almost straight through and stay my first night in Yellowstone with Jay on Friday night the 15th…skipping Grand Teton on the way up (but not on the way back home!). We’ll see. Once I am in the park, I doubt I will be able to post a daily blog. It depends on the internet service, I dunno if there will be wi-fi hotspots in the park or not, I haven’t asked Jay about that yet. Jay says he checks his e-mail about 4 or so times a week in the park, so I’ll probably go that route. Nevertheless, I’m excited and anxious about this trip, needless to say!
August 24, 2006
A few trips to Quivira NWR & Yellowstone in September
I haven’t updated the blog in over a month, but there just hasn’t been a whole lot going on around here lately. No storm chasing whatsoever, as the summer doldrums roll right along here in Southwest Kansas. I’m really looking forward to fall and the change of season to cooler and hopefully more active weather. We’ve had quite a bit of rain around this area recently, with 7-14" of rain for the month of August just north of here around the Ness-Rush County area. I haven’t done an extensive amount of photography, however I have gone on a couple short trips to Quivira NWR on my to and from back to Kansas City a couple times. I got my new Nikon D200 in late-July, and I’m becoming more comfortable with it. It’s definitely an improvement over the D70. I’m really looking forward to capturing amazing images with this excellent piece of equipment… mainly stormscapes… but also both wildlife (mainly birds at Quivira, at least for now) and landscapes. Speaking of the latter, I will be taking a 10-day vacation from Sept 15-25 to do some photography in Yellowstone National Park. My long-time chase partner Jay will be up there for the fall on a sabbatical leave this upcoming semester, so I’ll be making arrangements to stay up there with him. More on that on a future blog post as far as more details are concerned. I’m still researching what I want to photograph and when. I have to somehow work Teton NP in there as well during my trip, but the focus will be Yellowstone.
Here are 4 new galleries since my last blog post, all from Quivira NWR:
August 3rd (morning trip; on my way to Kansas City)
August 4th (evening trip; on my way back home to Dodge City)
August 12th (morning trip; to and back)
August 21st (evening trip; on my way back home to Dodge City from Kansas City)
February 25, 2006
Quivira short-trip 2/24
It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I had the day off, so I opted to head out to Quivira and see if I could spot any early-arriving migrants such as the sandhill crane. Well, I didn’t see any cranes, and my overall “luck” was pretty poor Friday afternoon/early evening. I did spot a couple Great Blue Herons, and I managed to get an interested landscape shot of a GBH in silhouette that I liked. Only about a handfull of keepers from this trip, which is somewhat dissapointing. The geese on Big Salt Marsh just weren’t moving much and were clear on the other side on the west end of the marsh which is farther from the road, plus with the sun setting in the west-southwest, it makes for horrible lighting. There may have been a couple Cranes in that huge bunch but I didn’t spot any. After visiting Bosque NWR last month, I’m finding myself missing the cranes. I have a feeling I may have to head up to the Platte Valley sometime in March….where almost a half a million cranes spend about 5 weeks between North Platte and Grand Island along the Platte.
One thing that is very fun to photograph I’m finding are the swarms of Blackbirds and Starling. I wasn’t dissapointed yesterday evening. As sunset approaches, red-winged blackbirds begin to congregate into massive flocks and just roost about anywhere… tree limbs, the tall prairie grass, or even a gravel road! I was driving north on the main refuge route when I encountered one such flock of blackbirds. What strange birds. Anyway, I think tomorrow morning I may get up very early and head out to Quivira for morning photography before bowling in a tournament later in the morning in Great Bend. (edited to correct mis-identification of this bird!)
February 1, 2006
January 31, 2006
NM Photo Trip Day 4: Bosque & Bandelier
Monday the 30th was day 3 at Bosque for morning shoot. I was treated to another gorgeous morning. Venus was very bright in the early morning sky and added to the landscape scene with snowy geese roosting on the shallow pond water near the Bosque refuge entrance. The next shooting location was at another shallow pond full of Sandhills just after sunrise. Great morning light allowed for more nice “Sandhill Crane-scape” opportunities. Upon leaving the refuge, I spotted a Great-blue Heron in a deathly still position with perfect reflection off the water, which was smooth as glass. Thus ended my great first experience shooting at Bosque NWR. It was onward to Santa Fe, arriving shortly after noon local time. After a bite to eat, I headed up to this place called Nambe Falls about 20 miles north of Santa Fe. Upon arriving there, I found out it was closed for the season. Ah well.
Never fear, though, for this allowed me to pay a visit to Bandelier for a couple hours just to acquaint myself. There is a little town called White Rock which you drive through on the way to Bandelier. The town is actually kind of popular I guess because of it’s “overlook”. I noticed signs leading to an overlook, but scoffed at it initially as “just another overlook”. I thought I’d stop by near sunset on the way back just for a look-see. Anyway, I got to the Bandelier visitor center and hiked about a mile or so through some of the interesting ancient Southwest pueblo civilization dwellings dating back to the 1400s and prior. So on the way back, I stopped by that White Rock Overlook. It was not your ordinary overlook! This was a 270 degree view from north through east through southwest down this amazing canyon which the Rio Grande flows through. Some tabletop mesas in the distance would remind one was in southeast Utah. I spent quite a bit of time at sunset photographing this. In fact, it was so good and the view was so vast that sunrise should be just as good, therefore I’ll be getting up very early once again for this. Then I’ll do some day hiking in Bandelier after that and photograph a couple waterfalls and other miscellaneous stuff. Then it’s homeward-bound after that.
January 29, 2006
NM Photo Trip Day 3: Full-day @ Bosque NWR
960 photos. That’s the count of .NEF files that I had transferred over to the laptop by the end of today. It is indeed beneficial having the laptop going in the car on a shoot like this! I only have one 1GB compact flash card. Yeah, I have now learned that bird photography requires lots of memory, for lots of shots will be taken. A large percentage of this 960 are actually unusable shots, mainly due to being out of focus or motion blur…the low light photos zoom photos and/or flight action. Many of the 960 are keepers, including some fan
tastic flight shots. Among the wildlife photographed today included great blue heron, bald eagle, american kestral, red-tailed hawk, western meadowlard, road-runner, a turtle, assortment of waterfowl including snow geese. The sunset tonight was also spectacular with high cirrus providing brilliant colors. Tomorrow morning will be the last shoot before heading up to Santa Fe for part 3 of this vacation.
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