The alarm went off at one minute after six o'clock.

This I know because I was facing directly at the little box beside the bed when it buzzed, and when I opened my eyes all I saw was the bright red 06:01 in the darkness.

It's still dark. Almost an hour before sunrise. I find my way to the bathroom, guided by the little red LED light from the battery charger sitting on the counter. The bathroom has only a small window, set higher than my head, and I can tell it is dark outside, but nothing else.

I go back to bed.

Fifteen minutes later I'm up for real. This is our last morning at Lake. If I'm going to catch another sunrise along the shores of Lake Yellowstone, it's got to be now.

I dress quickly and quietly, trying not to disturb the wife, until I pat her on the hip as I leave. Guessing it will be cool, I don the lined denim jacket, and grab the camera.

As soon as I open the cabin door, facing the huge Douglas fir outside the door, I know something is wrong.

Fog.

There will be no colourful sunrise.

But hey, fog can be neat, especially around an historic hotel with dim lights. Not to mention, the fog may burn off, or may only be up here away from the water. Either way, I'm already up and dressed.

I have to scrape frost off the windshield with a credit card, a trick learned out of necessity on a cold, winter elk flight in a Piper Super Cub. The SUV engine seems horrendously loud as I back out and head down past the rows of 1950s-era wood cabins, all of the parking spaces full.

The lodge is dark as I pass and turn right towards the hotel and the lake, passing the flickering red lights coming from an early morning jogger's shoes.

Yeah, I could have walked to the hotel. It's less than a half mile. But then I might miss sunrise. And to be truthful, this is grizzly country, even here amidst the buildings. Later this day we would find out from hotel staff that there have been no less than three grizzly sows with cubs hanging around Lake.

Not to mention there are bull bison that live around this lakeshore. We've walked right up to fuzzy rocks in the dark before in this park. Exciting, but not too smart. So, I drove.

As I neared the lake, I could see sunrise was still a ways away, the trees along the road barely visible.

The ranger station sits dark in the trees where the road turns to follow the lake shore. Closed for the season, I can see a green desk lamp still aglow in an office in the back.

Next comes the Hamilton Stone, that typical national park tourist souvenir shop, although it's no longer a "Hamilton" store, the franchise outbid for the first time in thirty-some years during the last go-around. But the store is also dark, with only one light above a side door, highlighted by the headlights of the first truck of the day to arrive.

I pull into the empty store parking area, and then immediately change my mind. Might as well drive down to the hotel. As I pull into the parking above the shore by the overlook, I see I am not alone with my thoughts of pictures this morning. Another man is parked here, his large camera mounted onto a tripod. He glares at me as my headlights sweep over him, and shuffles his gear over towards the front walk to the hotel.

Ooookay. Guess I didn't really want to see anybody this morning, either, but at least I'm not hostile about it. To give him his solitude, I instead grab the Olympus and walk off to the right, getting shots of the sleeping hotel through the trees and up the drive.

Shots better than his, I hope.

Back at the overlook, the lake itself is still socked in, the waves quietly shlopping up against the volcanic black rocks below.

A vehicle comes in on the road I drove, briefly lighting up the dawn.

Someone in a hurry to see the park perhaps, or, more likely, a worker arriving to start their day of serving the public.

Time to walk.

As I walk up the road and pass through the woods, full of chattering robins, I now find the store ablaze with lights.

More folks starting their working day. Beyond, the woods are still dark, and now silent.

Up ahead the paved road turns left, and the old lakeshore roadbed, now a hiking trail, continues on. The trail that May of last year was closed with an official "Bear Activity" sign. But today, there is no sign.

To the right, the slope drops steeply to the lake still slumbering under a blanket of fog.

After leaving the pavement, there is a break in the bank above the lake, and at 07:07 I drop down to the shore, a mixture of black and grey sands and gravels. Walking on the beach is noisy, especially on the cobbles the size of a baby's fist. Most grey and black, but with an occasional rusty red. Shifting to the sand is quieter, and I hear a vehicle pass above, and then two hikers. Then only the waves.

The shore is littered with skeletons of trees that have fallen as the bank eroded that you have to step over.

Behind me, the shore fades away into the fog, as if the traces of civilization that cling to its edge were no longer there.

Looking straight out, you cannot tell where the lake ends, and the fog begins. An ethereal world.

And ahead, the fog conceals an unknown world, a place I have never been before.

But others have walked here. At my feet I find fresh bison tracks, and tracks of a large canid.

Now, I'm no idiot. We're not far from a major recreational site, and the beach also bears tracks of more than one hominid. The canid tracks are almost certainly from a domestic dog, escorting its owner on a hike. But there is a wolf pack whose known territory is less than a mile or so away, and we have heard them howling here before.

Those tracks could be.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest value of having them back in this wilderness.

Further up the shore, I am surprised to find a burst of fall colour here along the grey shore.

A lone clump of grass, grazed by the last bison to pass, trying to stabilize a small piece of this geologically new shoreline of volcanic sands. The only true colours I have seen all morning. Up ahead, the shoreline turns right, a peninsula jutting out into the lake. A trail has been beaten up the steep embankment onto the sagebrush steppe by bison hooves, including the latest grazer. I am forced to choose.

Straight up the muddy bank into the real world, still hidden in fog, or into the dim shadows along the shoreline, following the fantasy land between land and water.

You know which way I went.