02.09.09
Posted in photo, travel, vacation, yellowstone at 9:54 pm by heidihoho7
So we’re diving into our first full two days of our photo tour in Yellowstone. We’ve had a few long days – the usual early morning departures and long days of trolling for “action”.
We’ve had frosty bull elk and lots of elk in general both days. Lots of bison are around as well and just today we had a snow dusting on our way back to town so we got some cool shots with the bison and elk.
The weather has been a little unexpected as well. It was really cold yesterday morning with the temps getting down to -4 which allowed us to get the cool frosty elk, trees, and pretty shimmery snow. Then today it got above freezing for most of the day – i almost wished it’d be yucky weather – it seems that the animals tend to come out in bad weather and it’d be worth the cold to get the cool critters! Yesterday we went through the Lamar Valley and on to Cooke city for lunch. We lucked out and saw some cool birdies while in town: some ravens, Stellers Jays, Gray Jays, Clark’s Nutcrackers.
Today we ended up following a pair of coyotes in Little America (or i think that’s where we were) for most of the day. We spotted them early, then as we trolled back and forth we kept spotting them so we kept stopping. We noticed at one point that there was a third coyote- we think trying to crash the party who promptly got run off, but ran back after only a few minutes. More for us to photograph, but man they are fast!
We’ve had a few rumors of wolf packs around but no luck seeing them up close yet. We did get to see a black wolf with a scope, but no photos.
Tomorrow we are off to the interior (delayed from today due to our snowcoach breaking down!) so we’re hoping the late snow from today continues high up so we get a lovely fresh layer to make beautiful pics 
more updates soon, but for now here are some more photos from the last few days! Hope you like them 
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02.08.09
Posted in photo, travel, vacation, yellowstone at 12:04 am by heidihoho7
So for our big trip of the year Bela and I have decided to hit Yellowstone for some wintery fun. Ok so maybe i convinced him it’d be fun – but none the less we are here!
So we decided to drive out – flights were a bit expensive and with the lower gas prices and driving his hybrid we were able to save quite a bit of money in these uneasy economic times. Luckily his boss lives on the route we were planning on taking so after 6 hours of driving we were able to enjoy a good night’s rest (a big Thank You! goes out to Jason and Molly!). The next day we drove an additional 16 hours through Minnesota, North Dakota and most of Montana. and unlike the verizon commericals may say, there are in fact dead zones so don’t try to talk on the phone in eastern montana!
Our first main wildlife sighting was around 10:30 pm between Bozeman and West Yellowstone – we came upon about 5 HUGE female elk on the road- right around a downhill corner of course – scared the **** of me! This was of course after we noted all the white crosses on the side of this road about every mile or so- and with an average of about 3 crosses per site. Made us a bit more aware of trying to drive a bit safer! Just a few minutes later we happened upon a fox as it was crossing the road just inside the park. Kind of a cool sight after so many hours driving!
After a much needed night’s rest we headed out on our first snowcoach tour. this was Bela’s first trip to the park ever and my first visit in winter. For those of you who are wondering, a snowcoach is basically a big van that instead of having wheels has either skids or skis in the front for steering and then in the back tracks that propel similar to snowmobiles. The only way into the park from the west side is either by snowcoach or snowmobile, or of course by self propelling such as snowshoeing or cross country skiing. We opted for the coach with about 12 other people on board with us.
Our tour led us along the Madison River where we “might” see bobcats, wolves, etc but really we just saw a lot of Elk (aka Wapiti), Bison (not Buffalo!), Trumpeter Swans and some other ducks and small birdies. We stopped a few times for the swans, elk and bison but mostly we enjoyed the thermal features of the park. A few times we were the only people getting off the coach, but our guide assured us that we shouldn’t care as it was our vacation too! And we decided she was right
One of our favorite stops was in Biscuit Basin where we were checking out a couple of small hot springs. Sherry, our guide, was telling us some stories at sapphire pool and next thing we know Jewel Geyser just a few feet away decided to go off – its only 199 degrees but downwind. We really enjoyed the brisk walk as the rest of the group just huddled on the coach.
We made a stop at the warming hut on our way to old faithful and were able to enjoy some warm beverages – it was pretty impressive to see all the snowmobiles all in a row. What’s even cooler is realizing that these are the majority of the folks in park (not counting the folks using the only road on the north side that is open). We made a few more stops to see firehole falls and some other thermal features on our way to Old Faithful.
Old faithful is probably the largest attraction in Yellowstone, and we believe the sole reason most of the folks came on the tour. We arrived just after its eruption but since it erupts every 90 or so minutes we had plenty of time for some lunch and exploring. It had been snowing pretty hard all morning, but it started letting up after lunch. As eruption time came near we worked our way over to the viewing area. As it started steaming and lightly bubbling I noticed a coyote over by one of the buildings. So Bela stayed to view the eruption (even tho i warned him so his expectations weren’t as high as mine were) and I grabbed the 80-400mm and made a run to catch the coyote. I was able to get a few shots off, right as old faithful erupted. i ran back to see if i could get any more shots… Mostly we wanted to get a picture of my niece Trinity’s Flat Stanley – aka Flat Dave. He’s traveling with us on our trip and he’s enjoying his first trip to the park too! The coyote made another appearance as we were walking away, he’d snuck around the dome and crossed the walkway right where we’d been watching the eruption.
Sherry took us on to Grand Prismatic, which is hard to see in winter due to the hot temps of the hot spring and immense size but it had some of the coolest ice within the bacteria mats. We also hit fountain paint pots where we happened upon a poor bison that we think fell in one of the hot spring pools, burning its legs. We’ll be heading back there in a few days so maybe we’ll see how it’s doing.
Many of us were getting a little tired on the ride back, but that didn’t stop bela and i from getting out to snap off a few more photos. We spotted a bald eagle on our return trip as well as some pretty sunset views.
We had a wonderful day and I’d highly recommend doing a winter snowcoach to everyone. We’re now in Gardiner, MT on the north side of the park, and here starts the official photo tour with Dale Franz of Franzfoto. We hope to really get some good wildlife shots! Check back in a day or two for our next update
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