Days 6: Canyon to Lake

It's hard to believe this trip is coming to an end. It's been a busy few days now, and tomorrow evening I fly home. I hate to leave. There's a lot of days to summarize and pictures to post here. I'm going to run down day six tonight and try to get the rest posted tomorrow.

Anyway, day six started out very early. I wanted to get to artist point at sunrise. I was the only one there, so it was pretty serene. The light was beautiful, both during the blue hour and during the golden hour, and I got some great shots.

Lower Falls from Artist Point

After Artist Point, I visited the Upper Falls overlook on the south rim. I was pretty sure I remembered it being hard to find a good angle to shoot. I was right, I'm still not happy with any angle I got. Upper Falls is really impressive though for the sheer volume of water going over it.

Upper Falls

 After Upper Falls, I left the South Rim and headed to the North Rim drive, where I took some nice shots from Lookout Point. Remembering the Osprey nest I saw someone shooting on my first visit to this overlook, I went back to the car and got the big lens, and got some shots of her on the nest. I was hoping her mate would show up at the nest but no luck.

Lower Falls from Lookout Point

Osprey Nest

I decided to drive the lower loop road again. Not far south of Canyon there was a bear jam with a grizzly in the distance. Other than that I didn't see much. I was hoping to see the Old Faithful area bison by the road, and maybe get some more shots of bison calves, but no luck, they were by Madison but way off in the distance. I did finally stop and get some shots of Gibbons Falls.

Grizzly near Canyon

Gibbons Falls

At this point, the afternoon had been almost disappointing, having driven the entire lower half of the loop road and not seen very much. Then, just north of lake I hit a bear jam-- grizzly and two cubs!

I got to Lake Lodge and checked in and was somewhat shocked at the state of the cabins. We stayed there about 10 years ago and they looked like they hadn't been maintained since. The bathroom floor was sunken and it was clear the base floor under the linoleum was rotted. It was the only poor cabin experience I had this trip, I was surprised.

The marmots living under the cabins were cute though.

Marmot living under the cabin at Lake Lodge

Marmot peeking out from under the cabin

I couldn't get a cell phone signal at Lake, but the guy who checked me in told me if I drive the East entrance road about 10 minutes or so I'd get a clear signal with AT&T. I did and called home from a pullout. There were a pair of ravens bopping about. After I checked in at home, I rolled the car window down to try and grab a shot of one of the ravens. Much to my surprise, the other raven came over and began to preen the first. I guess they were mates. It was very very cute-- and cute is not something I usually associate with ravens.

That's about it for day six. I'll hopefully post day seven and eight tomorrow morning.