Yellowstone & Grand Teton 2008

A week down in Yellowstone is always an adventure. This was to be no exception.

For the trip, I'd sold all of my Canon gear and made the switch to Nikon for the first time. Carefully carrying my new setup with cautious attention, I set up at the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. This was 5am on Day 3 and I was excited to try for a sunrise shot once more at this location, never being completely happy with what I'd shot in the past.

I set my tripod up at the edge of the railing at Artist Point, attaching my brand new Singh Ray filter setup and preparing for the sun to awaken. Missing my cable release, I bent down momentarily to rifle through my pack, only to hear a quiet scraping noise.

What happened next probably took all of half a second, but felt like time stood still as the my groaning voice belched out the ever-cliched noooooooooooooo sound. The scraping sound was from the tripod feet lifting up from the gravel floor as the weight of my Nikon D3 swung the whole ensemble over the railing towards the precipice below.

With Ninja like speed - not unlike Cato surprising Inspector Clouseau - Michelle flew across the viewpoint area and grabbed the very last 2 inches of the tripod in her gloved hands, barely hanging on to save my equipment from the 700ft drop to the canyon floor.

There was some impact, and I lost my best filter and smashed the filter holder into 2 pieces (which we fixed with some clever Macgyvering with an axe). Needless to say, this elongated second scared the shit out me and with the lost filter, hampered my landscape opportunities for the remainder of the trip.

So I left the Canyon sans photo, but luckily (thanks to Michelle) I still had my new camera...


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I hope you enjoy the shots.
Oli