Good to Be Bad(lands) and Why Oh Wy-oming
The Badlands of South Dakota are cool in a dusty, rusty, ruthless I-only-smoke-Marlboro Reds-and-nothing-green-survives-my-burnt-crusty-stare kind of way. It’s as if primary colors were outlawed then banished from the landscape, leaving behind long gnarled fingers of grey rock that jut out of a beige dry land. Sometimes blocks of earth fall away as if the sky had boots and stomped the earth in random fits. You can’t help but think of sagging, weathered sandcastles, lonely remnants of a dinosaur’s playground.
We hiked in, and as the sun began to sink behind a jagged skyline, we set up to shoot. You’d think it would be easy: dark edges against a pumpkin sky. But we couldn’t get the shot.
The Badlands scoffed at a close-up, and the camera got shy. But it was cool. The Badlands are really a teaser for what lies West…..
Wyoming. And the sovereign badassery of Yellowstone and Teton National Parks and the all-around vastness of everything in between.
Yellowstone is a huge natural amusement park full of endless attractions. Upon entering from the East through the Shoshone Forest and Absaroka Mountains, we were greeted by a lone bison strolling all hunchbacked and casual smack-dab down the middle of the road. Soon the bison and elk were on constant display, although we didn’t see any grizzlies this visit. The wind is bearlike, though, and it riles the massive Yellowstone Lake into an angry ocean. Rainbow colored thermal pools smoke…. mud pools bubble…. fumaroles spit, hiss and thump…. and geysers burp straight up to the sky. Steam and the stink of sulfur bathe your face. It’s a strange kind of beautiful Hell. And then you find yourself jaw-dropped and head spinning by a carousel of new views: snow capped mountains lording over wide bison-flecked valleys, waterfalls crashing, rivers cutting through rocky canyons, cliffs hanging out with eagles…. Damn, it’s good.
En route to The Tetons we wound through the striking Owl Creek and Wind River Mountains. The winds turned fierce and we found a ranch to host us for the night. Parked outside the horse and bull arena, for three hours the trailer shook and rocked through a downright dirt and sand blizzard. Then the winds calmed and we were surrounded by a psychedelic sunset and miles of sagebrush hosting horses and playful fluffy-butted antelope at home on the range.
100 miles west we were eye-slapped with our first view of The Grand Tetons, which roughly translates to The Big Tits. Oh, those frisky French. The more elegant Shoshone name for them translates to Hoary-headed Feathers. Either way, they’re unmistakable: dark, stark, stabbing the cloud cover with sharp brilliant white snowy peaks. The Snake River slithers at their ankles, spilling in and out of Jackson Lake. Dark shadows reveal themselves to be moose hulking beneath the pines, in heathery meadows. Oh, and in Jackson you can find the best croissant this side of Paris, Z says. (Persephone Cafe- thanks Nancy Lee!)
OK! On to Idaho and Craters on the Moon! Thanks, Wyoming. Ding!Ding!Ding! You’re the champ.
