Day 3

 

 

I was not a "happy camper" this morning at 4:15am when I looked up at the sky and saw 80% cloud cover.....and as we got closer to the sunrise location, and I realized that it wasn't getting any better....I said a few bad words.

All 3 forecasts for the 5am-7am time frame were dead wrong and I thought our sunrise was dead in the water. I hung in there. Looking for breaks in the clouds to allow our scene to be illuminated with morning light. Sunrise was 5:43am. 6:00am -Nothing but the clouds were breaking up some allowing parts of the surrounding mountains to be "lit up" but Mount Moran was flat..... 6:30 - a little better but Moran is still in the dark. I thought all we need was a "hole" to open up and allow light through for Moran and life would be good. 6:45 am.... whoa, we are getting there but not quite... and then at 6:57 am... the photography Gods smiled on me and a hole opened and Moran lit up like a Christmas tree while the area around it was darker.... Nature's vignette! Nature's spotlight! Whatever you want to call it but we had another great sunrise albeit in the nick in time! I had some members "give up", they packed their gear, etc... I yelled, "get back here"... and everyone was very happy. Two great sunrises and a sunset.... Three out of Three "ain't bad".

After this fantastic sunrise finish, we had breakfast at Signal Mountain, went to Signal Mountain summit then headed to Yellowstone. I gave my standard YNP newbie tour. We went to Fishing Bridge to Mary/Sedge Bay, to Hayden Valley>Canyon>Norris to Mammoth to Gardiner to Roosevelt to Lamar Valley. I have turned them loose "on your own". 

On the way to Lamar Valley, I snapped a sly red fox in evening light, one of our members had an interesting experience with a cow elk. We photographed a black bear sow and cub, we saw 3 bald eagles, a bison cow trying to give birth to a calf, and 10 mule deer on the way to the hotel. 

It was great MPEG GS Day 3!

I have  a bunch of exhausted MPEGers.  Me included.

We are sleeping in tomorrow morning.  A 5:00 am wake up call.

Stay tuned for Day 4.

Goodnight.

Mark