Month: October 2016

I was excited when I spotted the first Buffalo on our trip to Yellowstone

because they recalled visions of the Old West.

However, it was hard to keep up that enthusiasm later after waiting for several herds to clear the road.

I kept hoping for the chance to get a shot like the one posted all over the park warning that bison were dangerous animals who could easily throw a man into the air before tramping on him, but apparently these bison were preoccupied with fattening up before winter arrived.

I had to settle for shots of a yearling dragging himself up onto the bank.

Basically, the bison seemed content to eat a lot of grass and settle down for a nap and had little desire to strike a pose for tourists.

I missed my best chance to get a great shot of bison on the morning we left the park. Three buffalo covered in ice from the earlier 16˚ temperatures were slowly trudging up the middle of the road through a heavily forested area. Unfortunately, I was too busy dodging sliding cars coming from the other direction to reach my camera in the back seat and decided it would be wise to get past them as quickly as possible.

Geysers and Yellowstone go together. Looking back on a previous blog post, I noticed that I had already posted a shot that looked like this. For me, this is an iconic Yellowstone shot

because it includes the two most memorable sights, Buffalo and steam vents.

You can’t go to Yellowstone without seeing — and photographing — the geysers, springs, and mud pots,

even when you know they’re not going to turn out. And this visit was worse than normal because it was turning cold and the steam was even worse than usual, making it nearly impossible to focus on the vents.

Of course, that didn’t prevent us from stopping at all the usual tourist spots,

especially since Leslie had never seen them. Heck, she even convinced me that we needed to stop at Old Faithful,

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something I’d avoided doing on previous visits because of the huge crowds.

So there you have them, the obligatory shots I can now delete from my hard drive.

Although noted for its geysers and wildlife, Yellowstone also offers awesome scenery, particularly at the north end of the park.

Though not as spectacular as the canyons we visited later in the Grand Canyon, these cliffs carved out of time were enough to awe us.

It’s impossible to capture this majesty on anything as small as a photo,

but it seemed equally impossible to take a bad photo no matter where you pointed the camera.

You don’t have to look too hard to discover what carved out these masterpieces for the rivers continue their work throughout the park.

Rivers and streams may lack the mystery of Yellowstone’s fountains and geysers, but they spill their beauty

everywhere.

has Loren been the last three weeks?

Certainly not at home, or he would have at least posted once or twice. Nope. He and Leslie were on the road, far, far away from the internet and political races, but, unfortunately, home just in time to hear the abominable decision in the Malheur case. Much of the time there wasn’t phone service, much less internet.

We began our three-week vacation here,

a place I’ve never seen before,

though it’s probably indistinguishable from a thousand different beautiful places we passed through until we arrived at this distinctive pillar,

at the base of Yellowstone’s famous Mammoth Hot Springs.

This young male Elk seemed more interested in keeping an eye on a much bigger buck and his harem than he did eating, though this young female seemed more practical.

Impossible as it is to capture the beauty of the hot springs, I tried to capture different aspects of its beauty from below,

from straight on,

and from directly above.

I think I could have spent days photographing the patterns here, perhaps the most beautiful I’ve observed in previous visits to Yellowstone.