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!