Photographs and commentary by Dick Snoke
A driving trip to Colorado Springs, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, the Black Hills, the Twin Cities and then back home.
Rocky Mountain National Park: We drove to Colorado Springs for a graduation. Then we drove north to Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park, the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Badlands National Park, St. Paul (to visit family) and on home. This was not intended to be a photographic trip, but I still got some nice shots.
We stayed in Loveland, CO and drove west to the park, not a drive I’d opt to do again if I had a choice. The road is along the Thompson River, right along (like 10 feet or so away) from the water. In addition, the road is through the Big Thompson canyon, which isn’t all that wide. Further, there are not many places to pull over, fewer since a lot of repair was being done to recover from the spring rains.
Still, the park was worth the trip. We turned left and drove up to Bear Lake (9879 feet elevation), where that road ends. Its a short walk to the lake, but even that was tricky due to the melting packed snow. Sue waited while I climbed up to Nymph Lake, the next one up the hill. That was also a very nice lake, but I was very glad to have trekking poles on the way down. Very slick due to melting snow.
Estes Park to Jackson, WY: We took this in easy stages, stopping mid-afternoon to find a quilt store and brewpub. In each case we found at least one of each. So Sue got her retail therapy and we enjoyed good food and good beer for dinner.
The drive from Rock Springs, WY north to Jackson deserves mention as one of the most desolate pieces of the country I have seen. The sagebrush looked rather like broccoli heads, and that was the only thing to see besides the road itself and the fence lines. Not a building or person or even another car (mostly) in sight. I was happy to get into the foothills and have something else to see.
The Grand Tetons: We arrived in Jackson early one afternoon, before we could check in at the hotel. So we drove up to the south entrance to the park, and from there on up to the Moose Junction entrance. stopping along the way at the Rockefeller preserve. At the preserve we walked to the displays, and then down to see the creek. At the creek, we ran into the park superintendent. He was a little worried that we did not have bear spray, We left shortly after that. The sky was very cloudy and dark all the afternoon, so I had no chance for nice bright pictures of the mountains. Instead I got the dark, moody sort of view.
The next day I got up early hoping to catch some “first light on the mountaintop” pictures. However, the clouds were thick and low, obscuring the mountaintops. So I waited and looked for other things to shoot. I did get a couple good shots of the Snake River and some flowers. At last a bit of sun poked through, and I did get some decent shots of the mountains.
Then, after breakfast and some shopping (for a camp stool and a rain hat), we started at Moose Junction, drove up past Jenny Lake and Jackson Lake to the north end on the way to Yellowstone. The weather was a bit better, and I got a nice shot of the the Grand Teton across jenny Lake.
Yellowstone: Then on to Yellowstone National Park. A very nice, if longer than I expected, drive through the mountains. It took about an hour to get from the gate to Canyon Village where we were staying. Very nice views along the way, but we were anxious to get to the room, so we did not stop.
We did get checked in easily (I always worry about something amiss with any reservation) and unpacked.
In the week we stayed, we did see the entire park except the pieces between Mammoth and Tower, and between West Yellowstone and Madison. The weather was generally good, but afternoon rain and cloudy nights were the rule. But nothing severe and we had not great difficulties.