Yellowstone

National

Park

A journal from May 2006

through September 2009

By Gordon C. Redmond

The Landscape

Our first visit to Yellowstone National Park was only one day in the summer of 1959. We had just returned from Germany where I had been serving in the army. We passed through while on a trip between relatives in Washington and Colorado. One day in a place this large with so much to see is more of a drive through than a real visit. Nonetheless, it instilled an interest in me that lives to this day.
My next visit, in the summer of 2006, was almost an afterthought. I spent a week in and around Custer, South Dakota. On my way home I decided to spend a week in Yellowstone. I was hooked. I have made it a priority to return there whenever possible. Each trip has shown me new things, introduced me to new animals and ways to see them and I have met new people. Many of these people, such as the "wolf watchers" have been instrumental in my ever-growing enjoyment of the park and all that it has to offer. Each trip has helped restore me and rejuvenate me. All of these have given me a lifetime of memories which I wish to share with you. The uncredited photos here are mine. Some of them have been sent to me by Laurie Lyman and Len Umhoefer and are credited to them.

It was the landscape, after all, that caused Congress to create this, the world's first national park. I have chosen only a very few photos to show but a small fraction of this wondrous environment.

The first photo is the snowy world of Undine Falls in April 2009. The other three photos are along the Yellowstone River. They were all taken in the early morning hours and show the often misty conditions that we encounter there.

These four photos are of the Mammoth Hot Springs area taken in September 2009

TThe upper photo was taken right after a small thunderstorm over the Gallatin Range in October 2008. The lower one was a sunset as I was leaving the Lamar Valley in August 2009

The upper photo is of the Grand Teton Range. The lower one is of a rainbow that I saw from my motel in Gardiner, Mt. in March 2007.

Birds

Often visitors will overlook the smaller animals in search of the larger ones. There is a wide variety of birds within the boundaries of YNP. Most, but not all of them, are migratory in nature.

The osprey lives almost entirely on fish and is sometimes called the fishing hawk. Many of them live in nests along the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone." This photo was sent to me by Laurie Lyman.