back home...

Well it has been some time after the last entry. I am already back since a couple of weeks and spent a lot of time with my pictures. The rest of the tour went well. Snow at Grand Canyon, 32 Celcius in the Death Valley and a little luck in Vegas (won 120$). Now I am already preparing for the next trip to Istanbul. Can't wait.
The pictures of my US trip can be found on my homepage (www.jsbpics.de)

rain... rain... rain... in Zion NP

The evening arriving from Salt Lake City to the Zion are the sunset at Kolob Canyons viewpoint was great, but the next day started cloudy. After a dissapointing sunrise the first trail in the morning was to the Canyon overlook. Afterwards we took the free bus to the end of the canyon for the riverside walk, that ended into a slot canyon. With a wetsuit it is possible to walk further into the canyon, but we didn't bring one... Instead we took the bus to Weeping Rock station to hike up to the weeping rock. From here on the rain started. About 3 hours we hiked up and down to Hidden Canyon a small slot canyon high above the valley. The hike was interesting as it was steep and secured with metal ropes. The slot canyon was dry, but due to the rain and recent flash floods I did not hike far into it. On way back the rain got stronger and stronger and it got a little slippery...

It is still raining cats and dogs and for tonight the forecast is snow at Grand Canyon North Rim where we will be tomorrow, what would be awesome for pictures. And in Vegas and Death Valley the weather will be nice anyway.

The hotel in Vegas is booked. Not the most fency place but we got a good deal on Stratosphere Tower.

Grand Teton National Park

Two days in Grand Teton Nationalpark were not enough. Such a nice place, just perfect for taking pictures. South of the Nationalpark is the little town Jackson Hole where we stayed for two nights. Not much to write and tell, just that I took a lot of pictures...

  

After a night in Salt Lake City and a short visit there, and tonight close to Zion Nationalpark, we will visit the Nationalpark tomorrow.

Yellowstone

Well, it could have been snowing at this time of the year but the weather was awesome. The first day we arrived at noon at Yellowstone and stayed the rest of the day to watch geysers erupt. Most impressive was Grand Geyser. But also Old Faithful and Castle Geyser did erupt. The second day started at 5:55 am. The sun was not up yet but everywhere it was smoking in the ground. And lots of wildlife. First stop was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to watch the rainbow at the Lower Fall afterwards Hayden Valley for wildlife. It was really worth it. A coyote came very close... The afternoon we spent at Mammoth Hotsprings. To watch more wildlife we went back to Hayden Valley and we saw 5 Grizzlys very far away, too far for pictures but with the telescope some guys had they could be seen. Well and then it happened. The remote control of the car stopped working. Battery was dead. And also the emergency key did not work. The car did simply not open. And ALL stuff was inside. Mobile phone, passport, warm clothes... I asked a guy if he could help us calling the rental company. And he and his friend were awesome. Well the rental car company could not send anyone to Yellowstone, and gave us a number of Yellowstone car service which was closed... Great. We ended up in calling 911. A ranger was

send to help us. In the meantime it was getting dark and cold. Great that we had company! They gave us warm clothes, started cooking a lovely dinner and even gave me a wide angle lens for the night sky because I still had the tele on my camera... So we got really really lucky. Well in the darkness you could not see but hear the animals, especially coyotes. The night sky was awesome! Great view of the milky way. Luckily the grizzlys did not get attracted by our food. Just some days earlier a guy got killed by a grizzly in this region. Finally the ranger did arrive and he could brake into the car. Took him two minutes... And we could finally drive back. Thanks to the two guys the evening turned into a great experience!