{"id":10537,"date":"2016-02-17T07:03:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T14:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=10537"},"modified":"2016-02-17T12:35:18","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T19:35:18","slug":"legendary-photography-to-re-create-yellowstone-trek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/02\/legendary-photography-to-re-create-yellowstone-trek\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary photographer to re-create Yellowstone trek"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tarp\"<\/a>

Tom Murphy and his famous tarp. This photograph was taken during the making of the PBS Nature film, \u201cChristmas in Yellowstone.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

The last time Tom Murphy skied all the way across Yellowstone National Park from south to north, he was 34 years old and weighed 165 pounds.<\/p>\n

When he sets out on Saturday to re-create that expedition, he will be 64 years old, with a weight of 180 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure I can do it,\u201d he said Monday in a telephone interview from his home in Livingston. \u201cThat truly is not a concern of mine. The concern I have is whether I can keep up with these young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young people include two filmmakers who plan to make \u201cThe Journey Through Yellowstone,\u201d a documentary chronicling the actual trip while exploring Murphy\u2019s decades-long quest to capture the essence of wild places with his photography.<\/p>\n

Murphy will be accompanied by five people in all, and their presence will mark the biggest difference between this trip and the one he made in 1985.<\/p>\n

\"Bison\"<\/a>

Tom Murphy<\/p>

A solitary bison, covered in snow. Murphy says winter is his favorite season to explore Yellowstone National Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then, he was all alone on the 14-day, 125-mile trek, continually breaking trail and carrying everything he needed on his back. It also snowed, often with the force of a blizzard, for 12 of the 14 days.<\/p>\n

Part of what makes Murphy something of a legend is that he didn\u2019t even take a tent on that trip, sleeping instead under the shelter of a single tarp. He plans to sleep under the same tarp on the adventure that will begin Saturday.<\/p>\n

Retracing the 1985 trek was first suggested by Rick Smith, a 35-year-old filmmaker and owner of Bozeman-based Mirror Plateau Productions, who\u2019s known Murphy for about 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a good project for a film,\u201d Smith said, and after not much coaxing Murphy agreed.<\/p>\n

The other filmmaker who will be joining them is Shane Moore. Smith and Moore have had their work featured on NBC, the National Geographic Channel and PBS, and their clients have included Disney, the Discovery Channel, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and and the Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the crew is Murphy\u2019s friend Brian Chan, a retired Yellowstone National Park ranger; Clay Dykstra, Murphy\u2019s nephew and frequent camping partner; and John Williams, a friend of Dykstra\u2019s whose role in the expedition is officially listed as \u201cporter,\u201d which translates as \u201cthe one with the biggest pack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expedition itself will provide a big part of the film, but it won\u2019t be the entirety of it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe film is a story about Tom \u2026 his background, where he came from, how he got into taking pictures, what drives him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gets out there and goes places other people don\u2019t go and he brings back these amazing images,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Does he ever. In his \u201cSilence and Solitude: Yellowstone\u2019s Winter Wilderness,\u201d <\/a>a stunning collection of photographs published in 2002, each photo seems to harbor some hidden vitality, or to convey secrets about the park\u2019s landscapes and animals.<\/p>\n

A good image, Murphy said, \u201ctells some sort of story. It captures the viewer and teaches them something.\u201d That\u2019s what artists do, he said\u2014they engage their readers, viewers or listeners and draw them into a new world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd my world is outside in as wild a place as I can be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In addition to \u201cSilence and Solitude,\u201d Murphy has published five other books of photography, as well as calendars, cards and posters. He also leads wilderness photography expeditions around the world. But Yellowstone National Park is his home base.<\/p>\n

\"Tom\"<\/a>

Tom Murphy<\/p><\/div>\n

In a press release announcing the upcoming trek, Murphy said he spends 80 to 100 days a year in the park. He\u2019s been to Lamar Valley 2,000 days, he said, \u201cand it\u2019s different every time\u2014a lot different. The variety there is phenomenal in terms of weather, light and season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy grew up on a ranch in western South Dakota. There he learned how to deal with intense, prolonged cold, and he also learned that he didn\u2019t much like cows or horses, which he worked with on a daily basis for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas with wildlife, I\u2019m just an observer, but I\u2019m a guest in their living room,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I love my job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The silence and solitude of the book title came out of that first solo trip across Yellowstone. You can often hear your heartbeat after some exertion, Murphy said, but on that trip, and only on that trip, it was so quiet that he could hear his heart beating almost every waking moment.<\/p>\n

Besides having company this time, Murphy will also be accompanied by more technology than a camera or two. The public is invited to experience the journey via live updates on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>. But those updates will come from members of his entourage, not from Murphy.<\/p>\n

\"Map\"<\/a>

A map of Yellowstone shows the route of Murphy\\’s 1985 trek and the route of the proposed trek that begins Saturday.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to be typing, I\u2019m not going to be Tweeting,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t even own a cell phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trek will take the team from Flagg Ranch, a few miles from the park\u2019s south entrance, along the southern border of the park and into the heart of the Thorofare region, said to be the most remote area\u2014in terms of distance from a paved road\u2014in the lower 48 states. When he passed through there in 1985, Murphy said, a ranger told him nobody had traversed the area in the winter for 12 years.<\/p>\n

They will several spend days along the eastern shore of Yellowstone Lake and expect to reach Fishing Bridge, near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River, in 10 to 14 days. There they will pick up more food and stove fuel, continue past Canyon and Tower Falls and ski across Blacktail Plateau before ending at park headquarters in Mammoth.<\/p>\n

What is continually attractive about Yellowstone, Murphy said, is that millions of people visit it every year and yet parts of it are so remote, so rarely visited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a truly wild place, about as wild as you could possibly get,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The expedition, with its live updates, his photography and the documentary-in-the-making, represents an opportunity \u201cto tell the story in a better way,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n

And that is the ultimate goal of his work, of all his trekking through Yellowstone and taking photographs\u2014to make people appreciate the wilderness so much that they will be inspired to support efforts to preserve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days I\u2019m pretty optimistic that sometimes I make a difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The expedition team is still working to raise funds needed to complete the making of \u201cThe Journey Through Yellowstone.\u201d You can go to the project\u2019s website<\/a> to make tax-deductible donations. Starting Saturday, you can also go there for a GPS app that will allow you to chart the team\u2019s progress in real time.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time Tom Murphy skied all the way across Yellowstone National Park from south to north, he was 34 years old and weighed 165 pounds. When he sets out on Saturday to re-create that expedition, he will be 64 years old, with a weight of 180 pounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3822,3823,3826,2178,3825,3824,3821,3820,119],"class_list":["post-10537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","tag-brian-chan","tag-clay-dykstra","tag-john-williams","tag-lamar-valley","tag-rick-smith","tag-shane-moore","tag-thorofare","tag-tom-murphy","tag-yellowstone-national-park","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}