Spring!

The signs of spring are unmistakable! Yes, the temperature is climbing and the snow has melted but more than that, the wildlife is making the statement loud and clear. I saw my first bluebird four days ago and now it seems like there is one on every fence post. The cottontails are digging holes everywhere and carrying in lots of straw and llama wool at every chance. But the biggest indicators are the ravens. They hang around all winter and occasionally raid a rock dove nest but this time of year is when they truly spring into action (pun intended!) They suddenly become very intolerant of all other creatures - especially the golden eagles that they ignored all winter long - and they are working non-stop on their annual nest in the rocks behind our house. They are very aware of my presence even when I try my best to remain incognito so I will leave the nest alone now until the chicks are hatched and then set up a blind to try and get some shots without disturbing them. 

 In the photo, above, I didn't even realize the one bird was in the nest until I began photographing the second one as he landed and then saw the one low in the back hand up a stick to be re-placed elsewhere. I can just imagine the conversation about furniture placement in the nursery!

 I captured the second photo this morning as the raven dive bombed the Golden Eagle who was sitting quietly minding his business and waiting for a bunny to pass by. As always, the eagle pretended he didn't care that he was being buzzed by a screeching black demon.

Just a few minutes after the raven went after the eagle, I heard him making a ruckus on the other side of the canyon. When I looked through my lens, I saw him confronting a coyote who didn't seem too happy with the interruption.

Spring has definitely arrived!

Winter Weather

For only the third time in almost 25 years, we find ourselves snowed in on our property. This time around is not as bad as two years ago when we had about twice as much snow and Ken was traveling, leaving me to fend for myself and the llamas alone. But we did get much colder temps with this storm and it is not over yet. 

 The hardest part is watching the wild animals trying to cope. For about 24 hours everything was locked in place as the storm raged but even once the snow stopped, life did not get much easier for animals trying to scrounge up enough to eat under a couple feet of fresh powder.

The bobcat, above, did his best to travel along the sandstone cliffs but he was eventually forced to push through the drifts to make his way forward. In this photo he is keeping an eye on the coyotes that passed by just a few minutes earlier (see below).

The pinyon jays and rosy-finches are lucky enough to have a stocked bird feeder and fresh water at their disposal.

The cottontails are having to work especially hard to make paths through snow that is about twice as high as they are. Most of their trails are tunnels they have dug under the snow's surface.

 The coyotes in the image below are two of a pack of four that have been hanging around for more than a year. They are easy to recognize because one of the animals (a female, I believe) only has three legs. She is the lead animal in this image. Although there is no way of knowing for sure, I suspect her injury is a result of a trapping incident. She is truly an amazing creature and I don't know how she continues to survive and even to thrive in such adverse conditions!

 Ken and I have cross country skied out our drive for the last three days in a row. Yesterday we did the six mile round trip ski to our mailbox and back -  an exercise in futility since we discovered once we got there that the county road hasn't seen a plow since the storm started so the mailman has not been anywhere near our box. But it did allow me to capture a sunny photo of our home in the snow on the way back.

Since this is my first post in almost two years, I should probably explain. I have been experimenting with different web site formats for my photography and hoped to tie my blog into the site. I finally settled on a web host and am in the process of building my site. It turns out that with the host I chose, sticking to my existing blog is the best option so I am firing up this site once again.

It is amazing to look back on the last two years and see what all has occurred. Not only have I made a second trip to South Africa since last I posted but I have also visited Zambia and spent 10 days in Morocco with the photo students from Northwest College. I am now in my second year of teaching photography at that particular institution and finding out everyday that the more I teach, the more I learn. So many other things have taken place in my life and in the world and I am sorry that I let myself get so far away from the opportunity to discuss things in this format!

The Best Kept Secret

 One of the best kept summer secrets of this area is the Woody Creek Cabin owned and operated by Beartooth Powder Guides. The cabin sees quite a bit of use from back country skiers in the winter months but tends to be forgotten by the locals once summertime rolls around.

Located a short two and a half miles (admittedly all uphill) from Cooke City, the cabin is basically luxury "camping" in a beautiful, pristine part of the ecosystem. Although you end up sleeping in Montana, much of the best hiking out of the cabin is in Wyoming, just a mile south of the building site.

Ken and I hiked in on Thursday with the goal of trekking up to Submarine Rock on Friday. The weather was threatening as we drove across Chief Joseph highway and rain started to fall as we arrived in Cooke. The thunder and lightning were impressive but we decided to push forward and make our way up the 1000' in elevation to the cabin. Much of the heavy weather was to the southeast of the trail in the area of Pilot Peak and when we arrived at the falls on Woody Creek we saw the result, evident in the photo above. The Absaroka Mountains were formed by past volcanic activity and are much more prone to erosion than the granite heavy Beartooths to the north and east.

 One of the many joys of living in this area is the ability to find "spring" in any month from March to September, depending on the elevation. The wildflowers were spectacular everywhere we went and I had a chance to play a little with my macro lens.

Our garden was overflowing with columbines of every color this year but there is something about the wild variety that is so much more delicate and beautiful than the cultivated flower.

 On Friday we woke to relatively clear skies with a little mist in the lower areas by the river. We headed out about 7:30 am, expecting a long day getting to our destination.

 The fringed gentian were just beginning to bloom, still furled in their newness.

 This ground squirrel was totally unfazed by our presence and continued collecting and eating wildflowers as we watched. This is the first time I have ever seen a ground squirrel at this elevation - approximately 10,200'.

The paintbrush were glorious in shades of red and magenta, luminous against the bright green of the grasses.

Elephant heads were growing in the marshy areas. I never tire of the amazing details of each flower with ears and trunk so like the pachyderm for which it is named!

 Once we made our way up to Submarine we had a great view of Pilot and Index, although we were looking right into the sun. It is not often one gets the chance to take a shot of Pilot from just 1500' below its summit.

 This shot of Submarine shows just how verdant the area was. The snow had just recently melted from much of this area and the moss and flora are at their peak.

The view from the top to the north shows the Beartooths in all their glory. If you look closely, you can actually see a few of the buildings in Cooke City far below on the left.

The hike ended up taking less time than we expected and we were back at the cabin by early afternoon, just in time for the next round of afternoon thunderstorms!

Seeing Red

 Today's post is a very photo intensive piece about my recent three day trip to Wyoming's Red Desert. A fellow photographer and I had talked about doing a short camping trip in the area with the goal of getting some unique landscape shots. What we didn't count on was the heavy smoke from the massive wild fires in the Pacific Northwest that cast a thick haze over everything.

Lucky for us we ended up seeing quite a bit of wildlife so the trip was not a photographic loss, by any means. And I still got a few landscape shots - they were just not the ones I thought I would get!

 We started our trip by heading south and driving into the desert not far from Eden. We picked a camping spot with a great view of Boar's Tusk and hoped the haze would clear by morning. It didn't. The smoke in the air did make for a red sunrise over Killpecker Sand Dunes as you can see in the shot below.

 We spent the second day driving a lot of miles over dirt roads to get to our destination of Honeycomb Buttes. Along the way we saw an amazing variety of wildlife which you will see in the photos following the landscapes. The first two shots of Honeycomb are early morning looking north.

 By the third day the haze had cleared a little bit compared to the previous day so the closer landscapes were actually sharp with the smoke clouding up the more distant landmarks.

 Prairie dogs were in abundant supply just about everywhere we went and seemed curious about our presence.

 The highlight of the trip for me was the chance to see numerous members of the rare and unusual Red Desert non-migratory elk herd. They actually have a slightly different look from the animals I am used to seeing in Yellowstone and they are much warier of humans. A large group serenaded us for some time that evening as we settled in our tents. They were a long ways away and out of sight but they were extremely vocal!

 Desert cottontails were also active throughout the areas we visited.

Another treat was the chance to see several herds of wild horses. Like the elk, these animals were much more cautious toward humans than the ones I have seen in this area.

 We saw several small groups with foals.

 The biggest group we saw consisted of about a dozen horses - ten mares and foals and two stallions. As soon as we stopped the truck, still some distance away, the stallions rounded up the mares and drove them even further back from the road. We thought that was it but then the stallions turned and began running straight at us. The message was pretty clear - they didn't want us there. We immediately backed off toward the truck and they stopped some distance away but they had made their point!

 Another unexpected and thrilling sighting was of this rare mountain plover, below. She looks as if she is standing up for an ovation and she certainly deserved it. Never have I seen a bird so convincingly mimic a broken wing. If we hadn't spotted her running around before she went into her "poor me" act, it would have been impossible to believe she wasn't injured.

The last shot is of a pair of young antelope twins with their mother. The Red Desert hosts the largest migratory herd of pronghorn in the US.

All in all I would call it a successful trip!

Iced T

 Last friday we decided to saddle up four of the llamas and head into the Beartooth Mountains for a short camping trip. Because it was the first trip out this year for "the boys" and because there still seems to be an inordinate amount of snow in the mountains, we elected to head for T Lake, a relatively short 5 mile hike from the trailhead.

Even expecting it we were surprised by the amount of snow still present above 9000 feet. It made for some exciting moments as the llamas wanted to panic each time their legs broke through the snow crust.

When we arrived at T Lake we found the lake still frozen in many places. It looked more like early June than mid-July. The grazing areas for the llamas were extremely limited due to high water and snow cover so we were glad we planned a short stay of only two nights.

Shortly after we set up camp we had a visitor who spent quite a bit of time interacting with us while we were there. A female yellow-bellied marmot seemed to be intrigued by the llamas and kept walking right up to them before scampering away and going on to the next animal. In this photo on the left I swear she actually posed for my shot!

 One of the goals of the trip was to climb Lonesome Peak which we did on day 2. In the shot above you can see Lonesome off in the distance. It is not a technical climb but it is difficult because of the extended bouldering, especially with a 30# pack. The top of the peak sits at 11,500', almost 2000' above our campsite.

We had major thunderstorms both nights we were there and the temperature dropped below freezing, creating a new layer of ice on the lake until the sun had a chance to warm it up during the day.

The first morning I went down to the lake to pump some water for drinking. As I got to the edge I noticed movement and suddenly realized I was being watched by a very curious otter.
There were two of the animals that I could see although I was not able to get them both in the same image. The second otter was not as social and kept his distance across the lake from us.

 The shot above was taken from the top of Lonesome Peak. On the left is Clay Butte and in the distance, far right, are Pilot and Index. You can see that the snow cover is most evident at the higher elevations but there is a huge amount of white stuff still left to melt. I suspect this will be a year when some snowbanks do not disappear before next winter.

The gray skies meant the landscape shots were a little challenged but it was fun to play with photographing the many streams created by melting snow.

The shot below is of T Lake from above on the second morning. You are looking down the length of the top of the "T". The stem is off to the left midway down the lake. 

Bald Ridge Rainbow

Every summer Ken and I take a couple of serious, multi-day pack trips into the mountains, usually with the llamas hauling most of our gear. This year we are striving to add on a number of super short, one night trips to a few special locations with the goal of capturing some "magic hour" shots. For these mini adventures we are carrying the absolute minimum amount of gear, not including camera equipment. 

Our first excursion took place earlier this week with a drive up to the top of Bald Ridge and a short hike into a place where we could set up camp for the night. 

In my opinion the results of this effort were well worth it. I was hoping to come away with one or two shots to add to my growing collection of one-a-days of Heart Mountain which I have been snapping since January first of this year. I feel as though I achieved my goal and then some. The wildflowers were in perfect form and the sudden rainstorm that passed quickly through the area left a sky that begged to be photographed!

 These images are not in chronological order as the first few are from the next morning and the ones from the evening before are further down the page. We pulled ourselves out of the tent just a few minutes after 5 am to capture some color in the morning sky.

Not far from the tent I was scolded by a squirrel. When I turned around to take her photograph I discovered why she was upset - she was protecting two babies  that she had stashed away in an old woodpecker hole.

The trees in the area have a hard life with lots of wind and snow at high elevation. 

The larkspur and wall flowers were at their peak.

 Just after dinner we huddled in the tent to wait out a passing rain storm. As soon as it was over we grabbed the camera gear and ran for a perch at higher elevation in the hopes of capturing the aftermath in the magical light of the evening. I ended up with two shots that really made the trip for me. The first one is special because of the double rainbow as well as the view of the tent in the lower right corner. It definitely gives you a sense of scale!
The photo below was shared on Facebook and has received a lot of nice comments for which I am extremely grateful. It was actually snapped on the way back to camp after most of the storm had passed by.

 I learned something the next morning when we again climbed up the ridge to try and photograph the land to the west. In reality I should have been taking those shots the night before as well. The canyon is so deep that the shadows from the ridge I was on were not allowing any of the images I thought I would be getting. Oh well…that just gives me an excuse to go back and try again!

 On the way out to the highway we came to a field at lower elevation where the prairie smoke were abundant and perfect. Even though the rain had once again started to fall we stopped long enough to take a few shots of this colorful flower.