Yellowstone NP, 2024

Continuing our “Go West Old Man” tour from last week’s post, the boys cross Montana and head south through Wyoming. I’ve been to about 25 of the 60+ US National Parks, and the one I always want to go back to is Yellowstone and the Tetons. (I know that’s two, but they are adjacent.)

Some years ago Barbara and I drove from Yellowstone’s northeast exit at Silvergate through Bear Tooth Pass to Red Lodge just after the route opened in the spring. The road was tunnel-like in the shaved walls of snow taller than our rental car, threaded up and down the steep mountain slopes. It occurred to me the plow driver tasked with the first clearing of the year might have a death wish.

This time, going in the other direction, and without snow on the ground, it was just spectacular.

Yellowstone will always be a special place for me, at least partly for the way it came to be. Photographs made by William Henry Jackson were shared with members of Congress to show what an amazing place it was/is, and they established it as our first national park, the world’s first national park, in 1872.

The Tetons were ghosts for my brief visit this time. There were a number of wildfires in the area and lots of smoke. But you take what comes, and there’s always an interesting photograph to be made.

For a new gallery of Bear Tooth Pass, Yellowstone, and The Tetons, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index/G0000UkjctYJ7iaE