Finally seeing the EPIC Northern Lights show in person

Having lived in Seattle the past nine years, I know all too well the distinct rage of seeing a geo-storm happening and then looking up the forecast only for it to be cloudy the entire night. I would also have to drive 2-3 hours away from our house to get to a place that is truly dark.

Let me set the scene: it’s May 10, 2024. We have driven 140 miles to get to Devils Tower, Wyoming and when we get there there is zero parking. We circle a few times and then finally manage to squeeze into a spot. We go up and see the tower and on the way back down realise that the campground we had booked for that night is in the wrong place.

Originally we had planned to do Grand Teton National Park as well as Yellowstone but the weather wa sa bit iffy at Teton and so we decided to forgo it and just focus on Yellowstone. But we forgot to change our RV park that went south from Devils Tower so we could sweep up to Grand Teton. Our Yellowstone campground was north of the park and this would require us to go very far out of the way.

So we pulled over on the road (next to a field of prairie dogs) while we had signal and found a dispersed campsite 150 miles away. Off we went and arrived late in the afternoon and set up for the night. It was nothing special. Until it was.

Around 6pm I got a notification of a photo into our family Snapchat from my cousin Megan. It was a photo of the aurora, taken just from her phone. I quickly opened the aurora app from our location and sure enough it said a storm was approaching. With the usual Seattleite dread I looked up the forecast….and it was to be clear!

Come 9pm once it was dark I ran outside and set up my tripod and there it was. I’ve waited years to see the northern lights and I think all those missed opportunities in Seattle were so that when I saw it the first time, it was breathtaking. This storm ended up being the strongest in YEARS and once the moon set just after midnight, the lights got stronger and it looked like the sky was breaking apart.

In the end I was out taking photos for almost four hours, and I even managed to get Tim out after the moonset. He’d gone to bed but I told him to throw on some clothes cos this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I took almost 3000 photos, and some video in real time that you can view below.

I still want to go to Finland and stay in one of those glass domes where they wake you if theres activity, but if this is the only time I see the lights, I’ll be more than happy with what I saw.