What a difference a year makes

Jackson Lake ~ Teton National Park

Last year Erin and I couldn't wait to get into the national parks in Wyoming.  The road to yellowstone barely opened by the end of may due to the record setting amount of snow.  This year there is practically no snow and they lakes are already thawed out. Bummer.  Here are a few photos from our trip 2 weekends ago  Check out some of the photos to compare the difference in the years here.  Well im off and running back to finish this gallery hope you like the photos.

Same photo almost as the first one just in color ! Favorites anyone? Color or BW?

Found these cut down trees next to the lake pretty cool!

Teton and Yellowstone

Mama Grizzly and her cub.

So normally Erin and I work on Saturdays; but not this Saturday.  We got a full weekend off so we decided we would drive to Jackson Hole.  For those of you who don't know where that it is, it is located just south of Teton National Park.

Sleepy Buffalo at Yellowstone Lake.

So this morning at 5 am we were up and moving, leaving the ranch and on the way. Why so early, you ask?  Well Sylvan Pass which is located on the East Entrance of Yellowstone is only open from 6am to 10am due to a BIG avalanche that happened last week.  Also it is about 3 times as long if you don't travel through Yellowstone.

Another Grizzly, checking something out near Yellowstone Lake.

We could not have asked for a more perfect morning.  All sorts of wildlife was out and even though it was kind of gloomy there were breaks with big blue sky and tons of low lying clouds.  So we saw three grizzly bears this morning in about the first 20 minutes we were in Yellowstone National Park.

Bison on the road.

We ventured through Yellowstone and had a very interesting lunch at a diner with a lot of funny, America-touring senior citizens ( see Erin's blog for the full story).

Then on to Teton where all the hiking trails are closed but the roads are all open and we were able to see some cool things.  Tonight we stay in Jackson and then on the way back through Teton in the AM and finally back to the ranch via the long way but I'm sure I'll get some great photos.

I will be posting some more images (mostly pano's) when I get back to the ranch in a few days.  Also check in later in the week I'll be uploading some of these images to Imagekind ( which is my online
gallery).