January 24 - 25 January 26 January 27 January 28 January 29 January 30 January 31 February 1	Sunday, January 28 I was up about 5 and finished packing the last minute stuff. I grabbed a cup of tea before breakfast was ready. Eric slipped me a packet of hand warmers to use today. They would prove to come in handy.... Sure wish I had had them yesterday with the wolves! The suitcases were all at the front door by 7. Everything else (stuff that would be in the coaches with us) were ready to load by 7:30. The suitcases were taken to the next hotel by a third coach and will be waiting for us in our new rooms. So, we boarded our coaches and we left to shoot for a while. We stopped along the Madison River at one spot for some landscapes. The clouds looked decent at that time. They closed in later... The photo to the left and center above is a view of the mountains, Madison River, and clouds from our first stop of the morning. The photo on the right has two of our group of photographers near the banks of the Madison lining up some shots. Then a little farther upstream we stopped again. There was a group of swans sitting quietly in the water. The bald eagle in the tree above them may have been responsible for that... One bison was grazing along the river here. He made some nice reflections. These three photos show the same bison foraging along the banks of the Madison River at our second stop of the morning. Our next stop was for some cascades along the Firehole River. It was another nice stop. These three photos show three views of the upper portion of these cascades. The photo on the left shows a detail view of a portion of the Firehole Cascades. The center photo shows the cliffs and "snow pillows" (snow covered boulders) just below the cascades. The photo on the right shows a different view of the snow pillows. As we were getting ready to load the snow coaches back up, I looked down the road out of our parking lot and this is what I saw. . . . . . We spotted some bison warming themselves in the steam off a thermal feature near Midway Geyser Basin. They made a nice effect! We stopped at the parking lot for Midway Geyser Basin for lunch (boxed lunches) and a walk up to Grand Prismatic Spring. I didn't make it as far as the spring. About the time the boardwalk lost its handrailing, I got a blob of steam in the face that completely fogged up my glasses. The steam had some minerals in it, so that even though they cleared when returned to colder air, they were still messed up. I turned around at that point and returned to the coach, where I got out some lens cleaner and cleaned my glasses and camera lens.... The photo on the left shows the ice encrusted railings for the boardwalk with the Firehole River and trees in the distance. The ice on the railings is frozen steam from the thermal features in the area. The center photo is a closer view of the frosted railings with the river in the background. The haziness over the river is steam from the thermals behind me. The photo on the right shows my view back down the boardwalk after I turned around. There's a bridge over the Firehole River visible here as well as the steam from the thermal features. Our next stop was Black Sand Basin. It was an interesting set of thermal features, including springs, small geysers, and bubblers. We also saw a coyote come through the area. It was snowing lightly while we were here, so some of these photos have visible snowflakes. The photo on the left above shows Cliff Geyser, which kept spouting off most of the time we were here. While not the most spectacular geyser in the park, it's definitely one of the more active ones! The center photo shows Tom getting a different angle on the different colors in the thermal areas. The photo on the right sort of peeks over Tom's shoulder to see what he's shooting. These three photos show the coyote as it loped through the area. In the one on the right, it's barely visible on the distant bank of the Iron Springs Creek. The photo on the left shows the colorful runoff from the thermal areas. . The photo on the right is another view of Cliff Geyser on the banks of the Iron Springs River. . . These two photos show Opalescent Pool with the "bobby sox" trees that surround it. Bobby sox trees have absorbed some of the minerals from the surrounding springs. These minerals eventually kill the tree. The bottom portion of the trunks wind up looking bleached from the minerals, making them look like they're wearing bobby sox... . And here's another photo of our snow coaches parked waiting patiently for us to finish shooting. Then it was on to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge where we checked in. Our suitcases were in the room already. I was just tired enough that I took off for my room as soon as I got my key. As I watched the snow coaches leave the parking lot from the window in my room, I remembered that I had left my tripod in the lobby!!! So I went back downstairs to retrieve it. It wasn't there. Fortunately, the guys (our leaders) had picked it up, so I knocked on their door and recovered the tripod... After downloading photos, I walked around the lodge a little and found the gift shop where I picked up my own hand warmers and a couple of pins. Upon returning to my room, I suddenly remembered that Jeff had mentioned something about envelopes with vouchers for breakfast and not to lose the tickets. Well, guess what, I had forgotten to get those too! So, I went back to their room to pick those up... I swear, if my head weren't permanently attached, I'd have forget that, too!!! Dinner was at 6:30 in the Lodge restaurant. They fixed the trout dish for me without the buttery sauce (thank you!) and it was delicious! Time to crash for the night. Next...