Yellowstone Update

So I figured I'd pop up to YNP from my home in Salt Lake City, only 320 miles to West Yellowstone, and things have been pretty decent save for the fact that the park is still not fully open.  It is nice when you don't have to jockey for a shot with 7000 other photogs.

Anyway, I was doing the circuit at the upper geyser basin (Old Faithful area) and was using both my D800E's along with the following lenses: Zeiss 21mm, Nikon 85mm, Sigma 150 macro and my walk around lens, the Nikon 24-120VR (2nd gen). I put the camera with the 24-120 down on one of the bench seats at one of the geysers and was using the Sigma on the tripod.  I bent down to pick up the 24-120 but the camera strap hooked around the corner of the bench seat and the camera slipped out of my hands, hit the bench seat, then down onto the floor -- #%#@%#!

So I pick up the camera and, wow, the zoom ring had come away and I was looking right into the guts of my lens.  Again, %#^%$#!  I looked at it for a few minutes trying to put it back together but I didn't want to exert any undo force so I took it off the body, put it in my bag, and put my 85mm on the body to see if it was still working.  Body appears to be OK but I'll have to check the images when I download -- later.

I check into my new hotel in Gardiner and after a short nap I take out the 24-120 to look at it.  I could see nothing busted except the zoom ring was pulled away and I fiddled with it for a minute or two until I figured I should push the zoom all the way in then line up the "24" mark on the ring -- that did the trick and I was able to snap the ring back in place and some quick testing seems to indicate all is well.  Again, I'll have to see what downloaded images look like to confirm.

OK, now about Yellowstone...

There is road construction between Mammoth and Norris Geyser Basin and about 5+ miles of road is torn up and is now dirt -- figure on adding 30 minutes to that route and getting your car really dirty.  The road between the Upper Geyser Basin and the lake is still closed and there is construction.  The following are the expected opening dates for the roads that are not yet open.  If not listed the road should be open.

• May 8: Lake to South Entrance;Tower Junction to Tower Fall.
• May 22: Tower Fall to Canyon Junction (Dunraven Pass); Beartooth Highway.
• June 11: Old Faithful to West Thumb (Craig Pass)

Anyway, there are many Bison everywhere with nice size herds in the Lamar Valley and elsewhere.  I've seen just one solo black bear and so far no wolves or coyotes.  A few Elk but not like in the fall.

There is still snow in the mountains and the river that runs along the road in Lamar Valley is quite high -- spring runoff no doubt.

When I left for the upper basin from West Yellowstone this morning I stopped at the McDonnalds for breakfast but they were still not open as of 6:45AM.  I figured on grabbing breakfast at the upper basin but none of the eateries were open -- should be by the 8th.  After shooting I had to go back to West Yellowstone to get something to eat before heading towards Gardiner for my next stint.

I'll post more on my camera/lens and park status later.


Brian

Yesterday was a bad day, today was a good day.  

Further testing indicates both the body and lens survived without a problem though I'd like to check critical auto focus when I get back home.

Weather today was great, and by that I mean periods of rain followed by clearing towards the end of the day.  The front moved in from the west and by late afternoon the skies had cleared in the west so the Sun wasn't filtered through clouds, but in the east as well as north and south, there was nice clouds.

Although the park is still not fully open and many of the eateries etc. in and around the park are still closed, there has been bigger crowds than normal for this time of year.  There was a mama bear with two cubs a couple miles east of the Tower Junction heading towards Lamar Valley.  This drew an average of 50-100 or more people clogging up both sides of the road.

On a side note ... I managed over 600 miles and 50mpg on my car while being constrained to less than 45mph within the park.  This is the highest tank mileage and miles/tank I've ever had.  Car is a 2012 Ford Focus.

So, given the issues of yesterday this has to be one of the better days I've had at YNP.  Sadly, on my arrival at West Yellowstone last Thursday I realized I'd left my longest lens, Nikon 300 f/4, back home and the longest lens I have with me is just 150mm (Sigma Macro).


Brian

Got back from YNP a couple days ago.  I might have stayed a couple more days but the weather was going to be snowy and I didn't want to get stuck so I left on the 6th and got home on the 7th.  

I took the long way home exiting through the eastern entrance and heading towards Cody before heading south.  I will likely return through the eastern entrance as there is some really interesting landscape that deserves a few days by itself.

I used a dashcam (Blackvue 600HD) throughout the trip and used a GoPro Hero 3 Black mounted to the outside top of the windshield for better video without glare for some clips.  I'd like to edit/process some of this video then upload to Youtube.  I don't have much experience with video and would appreciate any advise for editing/processing tools for video.  The main thing I'd like to improve on is the sky that tends to go from well exposed with the Sun at my back to blown out when heading into the Sun.  I'm not sure there's much to do about the truly blown out sky but the in between could be improved.


Brian

There was a family of black bears a couple miles west of Tower Junction that had many people stopping along the Lamar Valley road for a couple days while I was there and they appear to have caused an incident a couple days ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRJ7jb1CE7M


Cornering a mama bear with cubs on a bridge is ... big time stupid!  It's fortunate nobody was injured or killed.

This bridge is within a mile of the location I'd seem them a few days earlier...


Brian

They were pretty stupid and many were simply walking away casually, which was probably smart. Not the place to crowd around the family. If the sow wanted to really protect her cubs, many people were very vulnerable in that situation. Things haven't changed much over the years. In 1997 I was leading a group of photographers on a workshop near Tower Junction when we spotted a Black Bear cub surrounded by people. One Japanese family allowed their little girl of about 4 years old to get really close to the cub as we arrived. The sow was nowhere in sight, but we warned them to get her away from the cub. We soon left without taking photos and hoped that others would too after warning them so that nobody would get hurt, including the cub. Two people in my group were from a state Game and Fish Dept. and  were really as concerned about the situation as I was.

Joe

I'm not sure what the deal is with the Tower Junction area but it does seem to be just about the most common location for spotting black bears.  Pretty much every time I've been to YNP there have been black bears spotted a mile or two west of Tower Junction along the Lamar Valley road.

It's not hard to find yourself a little too close to wildlife given the confinement to boardwalks and walkways in many places and the fact that the critters are going to go where they're going to go and take whatever time they wish.  In this case, however, the folks appear to have ventured out onto the bridge while the bears were on it and that's just plain stupid.

As I said, I'd passed the location where the bears were seen for a couple days but decided against joining them given the huge numbers of people.  I'm not sure why but there was a huge number of people along the Lamar Valley road and at the bear sightings I'd guess as many as 150 people -- and the park wasn't even fully open.


Brian

Looks like they've had a wildlife incident at YNP...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/us/yellow ... index.html

There is scant detail here but it sounds like they were way too close to the Bison. I guess folks think a Bison wouldn't do anything near Old Faithful, but it's unlikely the Bison got that memo...


Brian