MTgirl's Yellowstone and Grand Teton travel thread

turn up the volume and watch the video, you can hear the grizzly's claws clicking on the pavement
actually, for just waking up he looks pretty fat and healthy

http://www.kbzk.com/news/kbzk-news-team-comes-across-grizzly-bear-in-yellowstone-national-park/

 

Nothing left now but a pile of cameras, tacky souvenir t shirts and sunglasses...

 

Just in care anyone was wondering....no quadcopters/drones allowed in the parks. I was kinda curious about how the parks would deal with them - especially in Yellowstone since you could potentially crash in one of the thermal pools and not be able to retrieve it. Harassing the animals would be a concern too.


"And it's not just Yosemite. The buzzing aerial machines...aren't welcome at any of the 58 national parks."
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/05/tech/innovation/parks-yosemite-drones-ban/index.html?hpt=tr_c2

 

I do think its a good thing to ban them all together because people are stupid and would do dumb things with them - like I said before about crashing into the thermal features, harassing the animals. Makes me a little sad though too because I had thought about getting one to get a bird's eye view of the park. I just wasn't sure how they fell into the existing rules. Right now I can go to the park, take as many still pictures as I want and sell them for profit as long as I don't destroy or disturb the environment in the process or use props, actors, etc. Videos have different guidelines as do still photos with props, etc and they require special permits for that. I figured the quads would fall under the special permit category.

Some people got to do it! Not fair!

http://youtu.be/P315f7_rb-w

 

SO when I went to Yelly in April I was disappointed to find out that the boardwalk on geyser hill behind old faithful was closed down due to bear activity. i thought they were just being paranoid because old faithful is usually a pretty busy place and you don't see a lot of bears there.
well this weekend i made sure to make time to walk geyser hill and make up for not seeing it in april. at the furthest point away from the visitor center there was the remnants of a bison and a few tracks from some recent visitors, guess they weren't being paranoid in after all!

 

Beware of the trees

-----------------------------------------------------------------
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK NEWS RELEASE
------------------------------------------------------------------ Yellowstone Visitor Killed By Falling Tree
An international visitor to Yellowstone National Park died Monday afternoon after being struck by a falling tree.
The 36-year old man was from Taiwan, the Republic of China. He was part of a group that was hiking the Fairy Falls trail, which is north of the Old Faithful area and west of the Grand Loop Road.
The man left the trail and ascended a nearby tree-covered slope in an apparent attempt to get a better view of Grand Prismatic Spring, when a lodgepole pine tree fell and struck him in the head.
Other visitors who witnessed the incident made their way back to the trailhead, where they encountered two park maintenance employees working in the area, who relayed the information to Yellowstone law enforcement rangers.
The victim was moved by rangers to the trailhead to await helicopter transport to a medical facility, but after attempts to revive him failed, he was declared dead at the scene.
Yellowstone rangers who responded reported windy weather conditions in the area at the time, and that the fallen tree had been a standing, dead lodgepole, fire-killed during the park’s 1988 fires.
The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of family members.
The incident remains under investigation by the National Park Service.

 

Hope your defensive driving skills are top notch! Never know when the RV/car in front of you is going to stop dead in the middle of the road and 12 tourists pile out, leaving the doors open, so that they can take a picture of a buffalo 800 yards away.
Seeing the park on a bike would be cool but I'd be a nervous wreck - too many distractions for the other drivers. Traveling with a group may be wiser.

Tis impossible to get a bad photo in the park

 

Once word of a unique photo-op gets around people flock to the spot. These folks had been camped out all morning, some more than one morning, just to get a shot of some coyote pups - the den is under the cabin on the left. BTW estimates on the photo gear on display is probably around $250k

 

I must go to New Zealand!

http://waiotapu.co.nz/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/15/waiotapu-new-zealand_n_5484517.html?utm_hp_ref=travel