Photography and good guiding want the same thing: being in the right place at the right hour. Yellowstone is not a park where you wander until something pretty appears. The light moves, the steam moves, the animals move, and the difference between a snapshot and a photograph you actually print is usually about forty minutes of timing.

Here in West Yellowstone, we can always tell which visitors have done their homework. They are the ones who show up with three days blocked off instead of one. Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres with 310 miles of paved road running through it, and trying to see it in a single day is a little like trying to see New York City during a layover.