Yellowstone to Yosemite, Day 5

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Photos from this day at Yellowstone

It was almost possible with our schedule to photograph the sunrise in Yellowstone and sunset in Yosemite on the same day, this one. We had to fly Snafu Airlines to Yosemite so we were lucky to make Fresno by sundown.

Success this morning, however, depended only on my getting up on time and getting to the terraces in Mammoth Hot Springs without incident. The photos I got there were a big bonus; just getting there to "say" goodbye was the goal. Getting to Yosemite was also the goal; photographing the same day would have been a bonus.

It was rut season for the elk, and they roam freely in and around Mammoth Hot Springs. Getting through is not as easy as you might have been thinking in the last paragraph. Bull elk have been known to charge cars there. I started in the Lower Terrace close to, but through, town. There were a few other photographers being quiet as we listened where to shoot. It was going to be another warm and beautiful day, but at this time there was that crispness in the air that made you glad you brought a jacket. Then I heard that beautiful, high-pitched yet full-bodied grunt of a bull elk down the hill near town. I looked and saw him running back and forth in a field, his nostrils snorting warm warnings to anyone knowing the language. Then I saw a lady with a point-and-shoot camera arm's length as she ran at the animal for the shot. Some of the other photographers near me then made the lady the subject of their money shot; I continued saying goodbye by capturing momentos, but kept some attention to the drama. Neither the spectators nor the woman let out a single scream while I made my way around the bottom of the hill gathering a few last takes of the coolness of hot springs. As I approached my car to climb to Upper Terrace Drive I saw the woman walking up with a large smile of pride on her face as if walking through a tickertape parade. "Get him?" I asked. "I sure did," she replied with delight moving her head with each word. Good thing he didn't get you, I thought.

For that lady, the bull elk was the sound telling her where to shoot.

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