May 21 YNP

[Nikon_nerd]

Sorry short report tonight.

Another late start into the park (what a surprise). When we first started on our journey, the precipitation gods seemed placated finally. It was cloudy, but no rain or snow. All along the Madison River not much going on. Drove from Norris junction to Canyon didn't see anything. Proceeded south to Fishing Bridge. Hayden Valley was really quiet. A few bison here and there, but didn't see anything else except for a few Goldeneye ducks on the Yellowstone. Drove south from Fishing Bridge to Bridge Bay, still nothing. We turned back north towards Fishing Bridge.

Be forewarned: there is construction going on beginning at the Fishing Bridge junction and continuing east towards East Gate for at least 4 or 5 miles. It is a complete clusterf**k of mud, gravel, potholes, heavy equipment, large trucks and three separate areas with flagmen complete with delays due to one way traffic. We finally emerged from the construction zone after what seemed an eternity. We continued on our search for Snow, Raspberry or whatever grizzly we could find. We drove past Mary Bay ... nothing but a few bison lounging around. We continued east, but before we got to Sedge Bay we saw an inordinate amount of cars parked on the lake side of the road at two different pullouts. I believe the area is known as Steamboat Point. We were able to secure a parking place (was not easy considering the chaos ongoing). We walked back from the parking area a little west, and observed Snow taking a nap down on the beach. Very strange. No soft sand, just a lot of large stones on the shore of Lake Yellowstone. Snow was probably about 250 yards out from our vantage point. Before I could set up my tripod and camera, the precipitation gods decided that they had had enough of the peaceful skies. Snow came down on us with reckless abandon. We continued to watch Snow (the bear), but soon decided to take refuge in the car. This was about 2:30 pm. We hoped the snow was just a squall and would pass soon. That wasn't in the cards today. Just harder and more severe snow. I got out of the car after about 30 minutes to go check on Snow (the bear) to see what was going on. She had woken from her nap, and was much closer to the road, but the Park Rangers were keeping everyone on a short leash, and no one was allowed to get closer than 200 yards to Snow when she was grazing. I went back to the car to seek refuge and hope for improved conditions. Unfortunately, it didn't occur. We decided to call it an early day at about 4 pm, because we had a long drive back to 20 miles west of the park west entrance. It either snowed or rained most of the drive back to the hotel, but just to smack us for being such lightweights, when we got back to our hotel, blue sky emerged !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our intention is to get a earlier start tomorrow, and actually get some images of Snow (the bear). We'll see.

[billandkaren]

Nikon, Sorry you got snowed out today. Although we had similar weather at first, it cleared up pretty well in the northern sections.

It is cool you got to see Snow in the snow

--Bill