High Plains Drifter

Jay and I had a long, fun-filled day in the northeast part of Yellowstone.  We began the day photographing a couple of the waterfalls on the way to Tower, including Tower Falls.  We then drove through the Lamar Valley photographing a myriad of wildlife from bison to bighorn sheep to antelope.  We even spotted a few wolves way off in the disance.  After lunch in Cooke City, we headed as far up Beartooth Road as we could, since the pass was closed due to weather.  We made it up quite a ways with accumulating snow providing an awesome landscape.  It was 26 degrees with a stiff wind at the point the road was closed.  But wow, what a landscape!  We headed back west to Tower Junction and then south towards Canyon.   On the way to Canyon we hit the first bear stop.  A few black bears were observed along the east side of the road near the Dunraven Pass.  I was able to get a few decent images of one of the black bears atop a tree feeding away.  We then headed just south of Canyon Junction on the north side of the Hayden Valley where there was a huge congregation of wildlife observers, and other passersby photographing and observing a grizzley bear feeding on a carcass.  It was pretty far away, but I still managed a few decent images at 400mm on my zoom lens.  Anyway, after that it was time to head to Uncle Tom’s Trail which is a steep little hike to near the base of Lower Falls.  Wow what a power of nature.  Anyway, took quite a few images of the falls from here.  The snow was increasing in intensity a little bit by this time.  We headed back north through the Dunraven Pass area, with yet another black bear encounter.  The light was diminishing, so many of my bear photos were fairly blurry.  Our final shot of the day was of a herd of elk lead by a large bull with one huge rack up on the snow covered mountain side.  Some of my images here came out quite well, which I’m thankful for!  Much of the park was seeing accumulating snow above ~7500 feet.  Down in Mammoth at 6300 feet, it’s liquid precip with no snow accumulation.  Tomorrow’s plan is still up in the air, but it will be chalk-full of more fun stuff I’m sure.