Day 32 – Speechless in Wyoming

Oct. 8
Yellowstone National Park
Total driving so far 3,264 miles / 5,222 km
Yellowstone Park west entrance-on-google.maps

Three days in Yellowstone Park makes one stoned in the best possible manner.

Yellowstone is really THE PARK.

‘Stoned’ in the sense of grounded in your head by the power of nature; the incredible beauty; the diversity of the park; its not just one thing like geysers and buffalos, its that plus crystal clear rivers, mountain ranges, rolling hills, grass lands, bad lands, craters, elks, grizzlies, hot springs, terraces, reflection pools, steam baths, canyons, huge ravens, mud pots, meadows, wonderful trees, burned trees, dead trees, waterfalls, desert spots, and and and…

early morning in Montana, gassing up our Jeep

Also very remarkable is the impeccable infrastructure. Not the typical American pragmatism of ‘get a job done’, the National Park Service rather provides the infrastructure with a clear attention to beauty and details. I am a huge fan of the NPS by now. My tax dollars used in the best possible manner. And I keep sponsoring them with the childish fun of buying park stickers in their stores.

another sticker bought

Equally remarkable is the politeness among park visitors. You greet each other, wether on a hike, in a visitor center, in a parking lot. People seem genuinely to enjoy the park, themselves, each other. The Park Life and Attitude.

Yellowstone Park is really too big for a blog post.

I am finishing this post with a bunch of photographs. On day one, Saturday, I wasn’t happy with the photos I made when I downloaded them in the evening. I think I was too overwhelmed, and just kept pressing the shutter button. Day two was then very different – I got it, I started to get the park, and I consider these photographs to be among the best landscapes images I have made in 20 years of photographing. On day three, I felt kind of visually filled up already, images are not as good as one day two. I recommend looking at the day two images on a laptop, desktop or tablet, the phone screen doesn’t really allow taking in the enormous beauty.

Day One:

entering the park, excited like when I was six year old and waited for my Christmas gifts; it was very cold that morning, I had managed to forget my warm clothes; that is why you see Karin in an anorak and myself in short pants
for the uninitiated (I know what I am talking about), this is an elk, not a moose…
finishing day one in the Hayden valley, happy and exhausted; the park is at 6,000+ feet / 2,000+ meters sea level, so running around is more tiring

Now onto Day Two, with some of my favorite images:

visible even without the spotter qualities of an eyesight only 1% of the population have

Day Three, Monday, I took a day off from work:

Finishing off the three days in a local hangout in West Yellowstone town:

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