Yellowstone Winter Photography

Lamar Valley Cottonwood

While the snowpack was not super deep, the daytime temps were pretty cold and once the sun dropped the temps quickly plummeted below zero.  The cold overnight lows helped produce the great whoar frost on many trees in the Lamar Valley.

Winter Cottonwood. Lamar Valley

Lone Bighorn.  Upper Lamar Valley

Upper Lamar Valley and a bighorn. Moments after this shot one of the Mollies chased a wounded bull elk across Soda Butte a couple hundred yards from where I took this image. The wolf however did not cross the stream and the elk sauntered off a few miles toward the north facing hills of the Lamar Valley.

Winter Morning & The Gardner River

Long Exposure.  Gardner River

Long Exposure.  Gardner River

Note: The nearby town of Gardiner is spelled differently than the Gardner River.  The town and the river are named after the trapper, Johnson Gardner of the American Fur Company. The town of Gardiner is a misspelling.

River Of Tracks.  Lamar River

I could see doing an entire project on tracks in the snow...  Obviously, not all animals wander in a straight path.

Jeff Hull watching a lone wolf calling out to the 19 member Mollies.  Slough Creek, Yellowstone

Leo Gaertner, the co-owner of Buns "n" Beds in Cooke City, Montana gets the lunch time BBQ going.  His prime rib and pork ribs are fantastic.  Buns "n" Beds is a great lunch and dinner stop.  They also offer simple cabins for around $65 a night.  The drive from the Lamar Valley to Cooke City is less than a half an hour.

Yellowstone Tracks

Predator & Prey.  Yellowstone National Park

Tracks In The Snow.  Lamar River, Yellowstone

Mouse & Raptor.  Yellowstone

Soda Butte Tributary & Tracks.  Yellowstone

Wolf Tracks.  These particular tracks belong to a member of the Mollies.  My friend Jeff Hull and I watched this particular wolf cross the road the night before and we went back to check out the tracks the next morning.  Yellowstone

Two sets of wolf tracks.

A super high iso image of a Mollie crossing the road.  My friend Jeff and I watched many of the 19 Mollies cross the road to find 3 or so of their other members.  The Mollies are generally bison hunters and have apparently left their home turf, the Pelican Valley, due to a low snow pack and tough hunting conditions.  The Mollies are on average 15 pounds heavier than other wolves in Yellowstone.  At the time I took this image the Lamar pack was only about 5 miles to the east and the Blacktail and Agate packs 2 to 5 miles to the west.

Many of the 11 member Lamar pack in their home turf, the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone.  This is an 11 member pack.  Not long after I took this image I watched a helicopter come roaring into the Lamar Valley with a side door open and a gunner standing on the outside rail.  It was the Park Service and they darted two of the Lamar members.  They also apparently on the same day darted two Mollies out of my sight.  If the darted wolves were not already collared, collars were put on them and additionally blood and tissue samples were taken.

Bison & Wolf Tracks.  Slough Creek

At the time I took this image a lone wolf, presumably a male, came within a hundred yards of the Mollies and called and called to the Mollies.  The Mollies occassionally called back, and my intrepretation of the mollies' calls was, get the hell out of here.  It's mating season and this wolf was likely looking for a mate.  I am sure by now something played out and I will likely never know if this wolf was killed by the Mollies or if it was able to successfully mate with a female and then sneak off.

Bison & Slough Creek

North Hills & Moon.  Lamar Valley.

Gardner River

Waxing Moon & Gardner River.  Yellowstone

Nikon d3s & Nikon 14-24 f2.8 lens

I just returned from a trip to Depuy's Spring Creek in the Paradise Valley, Montana and Yellowstone National Park.  Many, many more images to come as I sort through them.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Boardwalk.  Mammoth Hot Springs

Nikon D3S & Nikon 24 pce lens

Boiling River, Yellowstone

Boiling River & Winter Color

The Boiling River, pictured above, nears its meeting with the much colder Gardner River.  The temps in the water pictured above are scalding hot. 

Gardner River

Steam from the Boiling River confluence can barely be seen in the background...

Nikon D3S & Nikon 24 pce lens

To Tilt Or Not To Tilt. Mammoth Hot Springs

Scorched Trees & Mammoth Hot Springs

Nion D3S & Nikon 24 pce lens. 

The above image was captured without using the tilt or shift function on the Nikon 24 pce lens.  It was taken handheld at an aperture of f14 and it's a manual focus lens...

The above image is essentially the same as the first in this post compositionally but I rotated the lens 90 degrees and fully tilted downward and focused on the tree trunks.  The plane of focus now runs horizontally across the mid section of the image in a wedge shape from left to right.  The plan of focus is "thinner" on the left than the right, hence the wedge shape, despite the fact it's hard to notice.  This image was also captured at f14 to essentially "widen" the horizontal focus plane.  At f3.5--the max aperture on the Nikon 24 pce lens--the plane of focus would be substantially narrower.  Both images were processed differently using Nik's Silver Effex 2.

Winter Contrast.  Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone

Nikon D3S & Nikon 24 pce lens