Fun Day With A Very Cute Ending!

Another great day in the park Northern Tier.  This is a quick post cause there's so much so mostly pictures tonite of today's foray into the park.  I may have failed to mention this but you can click these photos to see larger versions.  The HD versions will be posted later as the internet access we have her is basic at best and large HD versions and I would be up all night loading these suckers on our site!!!

Starting with the waterfowl....the sandhills are a great find in the park, but one was sitting on a nest

This is one we haven't seen before - a Northern Pintail.

A favorite of ours - well mine - because I like this color:  Cinnamon Teal

A face only a mother could love, but this is one of the prettiest mooses (meeses?) we've ever seen

 See what I mean - I mean honestly is this not some sort of mistake!!!  Apparently not!

And this is not even the cute section....but a coyote yipping in Lamar Valley  - sorry we didn't have an audio on this. 

And again as we were leaving the park....a mama with her mouth full of greenery (does she need a toothpick or what?)!

And now (drum roll maestro) the cute department and no caption cause it will take away from the awwwwwwww background noise!!!

These were the darling little black bear cubs from the mama above.  They are brand new and still suckling and so precious that we couldn't pass this photo moment up!

More tomorrow!!!

Why Do We Come To Yellowstone In The Spring

Spring seems like such a dumb time to come - it's cold, snowing (not every year, but a lot), and it just doesn't seem very hospitable.  But from another point of view, it's before the park is inundated with masses of people - truly the roads are jam packed with cars during the summer months and then there's the babies.   Good grief - the babies...calves, kids, lambs,  cubs, kits, pups and chicks - you name it they are all out.  Today was a perfect example.  It started out slow and cold and cloudy and ended fast and furious and sunny!

The day started out slow.  The bison are out and they are roaming like crazy.  The cows haven't started dropping calves, but will in a week or so.  In the meantime, these majestic creatures are gorgeous in the snow - when it's not snowing (the camera likes to focus on the snow and not the creature)!  

 These are such beautiful shots with the bison looking straight on.  You will be glad to know that we were in the car when this was taken!

From there we went to an old osprey nest that is now active again.  Can't see her?

This may help....she's sitting very low on the nest and it's a good thing.  All that snow can't be too warm and cozy for the chicks. 

In the meantime, Mr. Osprey is out fishing the Lamar River (this nest is in the Lamar Canyon), and doing a great job with this huge trout - almost as big as the bird.

So it looks like there are chicks in the nest - being fed the usual way that birds like to do!

He then takes up residence on his "yes, dear" branch being very supportive, I'm sure!

The nice thing about having a few years under our belt in Yellowstone is that we know where all the usual suspects are - like the old osprey nest, the old owl's nest at the ranger station and Aspen East and West which always have Kestrels.  They are the smallest of birds of prey and they are really beautiful.  This one happened to be evicting a large crow that had taken up residence in the old Kestrels' nest site.  It was really fun to watch and believe it or not the Kestrel will win this battle and have the chicks in that usurped crow's spot!

So we're pretty pleased with ourselves when we come upon some rangers and a crowd of people gawking at something and over on a rise close to the road were the most regal looking rams ever.  I had never seen rams together like this, but in the spring the ewes are in one area and the rams another as the ewes are getting ready to deliver.

Rams always have a way of looking at you like, "Now, who gave you permission to take my picture?"  And you want to scurry away after you've snuck in a shot or two!  They caused such a fuss that they got bored and moved on.

And this is what so often happens in Yellowstone, while we were taking some shots here, in the other direction was a darling fox scampering across a meadow just behind us.  Of course, after we apologized to the Rams for our interruption, the crowd quickly did an 180 and scurried after the fox. 

She's so ladylike and cute.  Walt was so close he had a hard time getting the whole animal in his lens.  At the same time, our landscape lens on the other camera wasn't zoom enough to get a good shot of this fox.  She headed right toward an old den location, so maybe we may be looking at that den for a new litter of kits!

So we're pretty excited about the day.  It's about 3:30 and usually we head back to the RV at this point - but not today.

As we're coming up over the hill, there's a huge traffic jam and that means one thing....BEAR JAM!

 Here you can see with the landscape lens how far apart they were.  Mom had told cub to run up a tree, so what does cub do?....yep, you guessed it - run up a tree!!!

 Here's one of the cubs scurrying to keep up with mom.

And here's the sow working at eating and keeping track of the kids while she's catching up from a long winter in hibernation. 

This is what makes Yellowstone so much fun during the Spring.  There's something going on all the time.  This year we've also noticed that's it a little more crowded than past years, but it's still a blast. 

Tomorrow looks to be a little warmer and now that we have some "hot spots" we'll hopefully get to see a lot more goodies!

Snow Day

We knew this was coming before we even came up here so I was prepared.  I had on three layers of serious thermal type underwear, over wear and outerwear and was about as agile as Ralphie's little brother in The Christmas Story.  Nevertheless, I was warm - all day.  And even though there is often a snow this time of year, it was fun for us.

However snow does present it's own problems in photography which we soon found out.

This looks like a fine photo in great color, but the truth is that the bison are out of focus because the camera wants to focus on the white snow.  And the white snow - some of it - is in focus.

We did better when we did manual focus, but this is setting up the camera and mounting it on a tripod, and it's real hard to catch those serendipitous moments this way.  Here the snow is blowing and the bison is in focus.

What we did discover is that video really gave the feeling of the snow here.  This was a wet snow, but a lot of it.  Since we're in the Northern Tier, it is lower here than in the southern part of the park, where roads are still not opened, and won't be till after the first of June because there is too much snow on these roads.  Considering the amount of snow that the area has had, and the amount of snow melt, the falls are gorgeously full.

  This is one of the minor falls which we will get later when the snow melts, but is a great display of the falls because there is so much water.  Yellowstone River is high, Gardiner River is high, Slough Creek is not a creek but a whole slough, and the Lamar Valley has a swamp where the Lamar River has gone over it's normal track.  Since there's no worries about flooding, the animals handle it really well, and the waterfalls are beautiful. 

Here's the video for the day which is a little montage from our travels to the NE Gate (about 7300 ft altitude), and actually we chickened out about 10 miles from the gate, because the roads were getting a little iffy and neither one of us wanted to spend the night in a ditch in a truck as that's pretty sparse territory.  From the NE part of the park to Norris (about 7500 ft altitude) to Madison (about 6800 ft altitude) and back to Mammoth which is a balmy 6200 ft and through the Northern Gate about 5314 ft, it's easy to see why the Northern Tier is so much warmer, temperate, the first to thaw out and where the wildlife abounds, which is one of the many reasons it's so rich in wildlife!

Banner Day

This was a great day in Yellowstone and it seemed like everyone was out today.  That meant that we had a lot of opportunity to do all sorts of things.  This is the amazing thing about Yellowstone and trekking out the Northern district of Yellowstone.  We never start out looking for anything, when suddenly it appears.  It's serendipitous all the way through the Northern part of Yellowstone.

So the nice thing about having been to Yellowstone many times is that we know the places and haunts for things...like the owl's nest at the ranger station, the Eagles of Madison River, the elk at Mammoth (who I refer to as the Chamber-of-Commerce elk), the osprey nest at Lamar Canyon, but there's always something special (and usually more than one) at Slough Creek.  Trekking there today led us to an old wolf's den that was used by the Slough Creek pack, and now by the Prospects.  The gossip is that the Prospects suffered a raid by the Mollies and one Prospect was injured badly, but has been seen walking around and healing.  Walt's very patient with me cause I love this wolf stuff and could sit there for hours watching the den to see activity.  The clear sigh of wolf watching is a row of scopes, because wolves will run from humans and are very rarely close to them and the park sets rules of no closer than 100 feet, and the good news is most wolf enthusiasts follow that rule, which means scopes.  Today through my binoculars, I saw the blond male at the den moving around in this old den and loved it.

We started at Floating Island Lake with a black bear that had drug out an elk from the lake, it is surmised by the rangers, from last winter, and now that the lake has thawed, the bear drug it out to land....yummy!!!! (Egads!)  But the bear seemed to like it well enough.  So much so that he was chasing other bears off the carcass!

Right in front of us, because the bear was on the other side of the lake as we didn't want to 1.) compete for that yummy piece of carcass and 2.) weren't interested in getting mauled by the bear, was a row of high grass with a lot of red-winged and yellow-winged blackbirds.  Now I'm not a fan of blackbirds, but yellow & red-winged variety are not only pretty, but they have a very interesting song.  Walt always knows I like these birds and will grab a shot just for me.

Moving down the road, we check out the golden eagle nest there and nothing yet, so turn around to find an elk prancing down the meadow....elk don't walk,, they prance.

Maybe she was prancing for Walt!!! She was looking straight at him!

And just as we were getting ready to leave....what should show up but our favorite prankster - the coyote!

Maybe it's cause man has always had a great relationship with canines and I can picture these creatures at early man's fire sharing food, or maybe cause Bruno is with us on all our trips - who knows, but these animals seem so friendly like they are really interested in us.  The coyote started to turn away and then Bruno and I started howling (yes, we howl together beautifully - for some ears!), and he looked back to see what was going on!

We then turned back toward Mammoth but before we were finished we ran across a very industrious badger who was building a den, or two, or three for her family.  Walt got a great video of this which I will post later (running out of internet good will, I think).  But Walt did do a great video of the thundering beasts of the Serengeti of North America - the Bison.  Enjoy!

 One short note on the blog.  I keep my Facebook Page mostly for sewing and the like, and this can monopolize it, so I'm posting these links onto our CWUAP.com Facebook page.  They won't appear on my regular page anymore.  If you're interested you can subscribe here via the RSS feed (almost any feed reader will pick it up - my fav is Feedly, but any feed reader will do. 

First Full Day in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is the Granddaddy of National Parks for a reason.  If in your lifetime you visit one national park, this is the one to visit.  There's so much here, and there are people who keep coming back for years and years and years - like us - and are never bored.  This was a reconnoiter session so that we could get the lay of the land and see what's the same and what's new.  The first thing we noticed is that they had a LOT of snow last season and the rivers, creeks, ponds and lakes are all way up.  The waterfalls are going to be a blast this spring.

We hit some of the regulars, like a playful coyote working on the remains of the day.

Coyotes must be the best entertainers in Yellowstone....this guy was gnawing away at an elk femur probably trying to get the marrow out.  The treat here is that Walt got a great video of this, which I will have to post after I get to a broadband internet service (back home)!

 Moving further toward Lamar Valley there are a group of aspens that always have some Kestrel nests in them, and this guy was working the field for some bugs and resting on an aspen limb checking us out.

As we got closer to the Northeast Gate of Yellowstone, we spotted a badger that was really large.  They have a great little friendly looking face, but have to remember that last time we were here they raided a fox's den and got the kits.  We were really upset, especially for the mom, and ever since, no matter how beautiful, I've always been a little leery of badgers, and when they are this big, I'll pass on getting too close. 

Walt has one of those gigantor lenses  - like the ones you see at the OU football games on the side lines, which makes it a lot safer and easier to get this close-up shots!

As we were getting ready to leave the aspens, we noticed a couple of large birds fly in, and the sandhill landing is unmistakable.  It's like special forces parachuting in.  Then Walt got this great shot here. 

So much for reconnoitering - tomorrow we start in earnest, because Thursday & Friday it's snowing!!!!  Yikes!!!

The Closer to Beautiful Scenery, the Worse The Signal

This always happens on our trips, when we first start out I can post like crazy, but getting closer to the beautiful landscape and our destination, and the signal is either non or one bar - sorta in and out, and then my iPhone gets tired of trying and says: "Na, na, na, try again!!!"  It wins and I have to wait till I'm on wi-fi again.  But that doesn't meant the photography stops. 

We stayed in a simple place, but one of our favs, Rawlins, WY in southern Wy which we seem to be able to make in one day.  After a hard day of driving, we only do bare minimum to set up, but came filled with water so were both looking forward to a hot relaxing shower....or so we thought.

Now from an artistic point of view this really has great composition and colors and is very interesting.  From the view of someone wanting to take a hot shower, this is bad news...a broken (or rotted or corroded or otherwise non-operational) heating element.  So no hot shower till we get that replaced.  Since the next day is a light travel day, we can trek into Rawlins, which is probably the last spot having good services like Walmart, Ace Hardware and other wonderful places that RV-er's like to use, we will be in till we wander out of Yellowstone to find some needed part in the future (which always occurs when you're RV'in)!

Seeing Pronghorn (or antelope) always says we are close to some wonderful landscape. I marvel at these animals cause they are the last of their family and are old to North America.  Not the best pic, but at 70 MPH not bad!

And then seeing mountains in the distance is always fun for a flat-lander like me!

 But the Tetons are the best - even through a feelthy, buggy windshield!  We were early so decided to stop off at Colter Bay in Grand Tetons as I've always wanted to try this spot.  For a National Park, and considering a famous well-know national park this RV full-hookups doesn't disappoint, as most of the time National Park RV Parks are very cramped and most of the time they don't exist.  The rustling pines were a delightful relaxation sound and we both slept really well.

Goodbye to Tetons and off to Yellowstone.

 The south gate is just opened and normally I'm rather blase about it as it seems a late opening, but this year, there was tons of snow and we've never seen so much on the south road to Old Faithful before.

This really looks like the first day of opening for the Beartooth Highway.

And passing over the Continental Divide is the fun.  The confusing part about YNP is that the south is far colder than the northern border.  The south is higher and the north is lower, which makes things very confusing, but Lamar Valley notoriously is warmer than Hayden Valley.  The caldera of the old volcano of YNP is higher and that makes for the difference in snow and temperatures.

This year we noticed that even in Mammoth Hot Springs, that there was a little snow remaining.  All the rivers and streams are full and some overflowing, which will make animal hunting interesting in the next weeks. 

WestWorld and Dead Horse State Park

After we got home and re-digested all our photos, it's hard for us to post further photos.  One thing for sure happens.  The photos that we thought were satisfactory, turn magical when we are home.  We're not sure why, but it always happens.

One thing special happened this time, and as I was binging my way through Westworld, almost every episode had pictures that we had taken or been in our recent trip.  So many of the locations
from Monument Valley...

to Dead Horse State Park.....

What Dead Horse, who's ever heard of this place? We certainly hadn't but one visit there and Walt couldn't wait to go back.  And yes, the river is that green. There are 2 rivers in the area, and this is not to be confused with Green River.  This is the famous Colorado River.

But it's also the location of the famous train scene from WestWorld.

Here's another shot with the sun a little higher in the morning.

And higher still.  The view is really that beautiful and you can see why

From the WestWorld intro.  There's some CG going on here, cause there is no train that runs through the valley. 

As you can tell, there's an emblem in the river bank to the left of the river.  In real life, that isn't there.

But what impresses me as much is how we got the lighting so great on our shots.  Dead Horse Point faces south.  That means you have the sun to your left at sunrise and to the right at sunset. This is the perfect location for landscape art photography. I know you've always heard to have the sun behind the photographer, but for art photography, you really want the sun on the left or right of your subject to create the best shadows and high contrast between the light and dark. 

Normally, landscape is best at the "golden hours" either right after sunrise or right before sunset.   These hours are the best.  But this place even takes a great shot in the middle of the day (above.)