Hi all--

I left Yellowstone today and traveled to Missoula. So tonight I finally have Internet access again. As well as a warm extremely comfortable bed a nice private shower and an alarm clock that won't attack me if I step out of bed. (More on that later)

I will be spending some time now with family in Montana and shooting in the Choteau area.

So today I'll get back up to speed and post some images from the last few days. I should be able to stay up to date for the rest of the trip (I think).

Monday October 1, 2007

Monday started out in Jackson Hole and ended at Mammoth in Yellowstone. I was very sad to leave Jackson, Wy. I think it is really my favorite town in the country.

This year I got to meet up with a few friends who have been instrumental in advancing my photography. Craig Tanner, Matt Gibson and Mark Johnson have been a great inspiration to me both personally and photographically. They were in town leading a Radiant Vista workshop and I was able to have dinner with them throughout the week.

It was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot of great people each night. It was just what I needed as the weeks of travel were beginning to wear on. So thanks so much guys...

Today's first shot is of an Aspen grove at the north end of the Tetons on the way out of the park.



Today's second image came after hours of driving around Yellowstone looking for animals and interesting locations to shoot. After exploring a majority of the park I came across a black bear and cubs around the Roosevelt area of the park.



I spent about 2 hours watching the bear before my stomach said it was time to go. On the way back to Mammoth There was a small jam ahead so I stopped to see what was going on. The buck in this image was hanging out in a real nice location. I shot a few images of him and met Louie a retired firefighter from Michigan. I would spend a lot of time talking with him and his wife over the next few days as we helped each other out in locating the action in the park.




Tuesday October 2, 2007

Today was a rainy cold day in the park and there really wasn't much going on. I ended up driving a major portion of the park with little or no results. The rain in the lowlands equated to snows at the upper elevations. So the Dunraven Pass was closed making travel around the park a little more involved.

Today's first image was taken in the Slough (sloo) Creek area. The ever-faithful wolf watchers were posted up on a bluff near the entrance to the Slough Creek Road.



After checking out this are and coming up empty-handed I headed back to check out the Roosevelt area to see what the bears were up to. When I got there they were snoozing but slowly waking up. Once they were up the headed slowly down the mountain eating only the most green of the vegetation. As with yesterday I got a good shot of the momma but today I was also able to get the first good shot of the cubs.






Wednesday October 3, 2007

Today had a bit of an interesting start. I was camped at the Mammoth campground and staying in the back of the truck. By this time I had become quite comfortable with sleeping in the truck. Before leaving I had planned out and built a nice platform with built in storage, installed lighting and loaded the truck with everything I would need. It is my little home on wheels. At night I rollout my sleeping bags and enjoy a surprisingly good nights sleep.

As many of you know the Mammoth are has a very healthy elk population and they make their home pretty much where ever they want. On Tuesday night they moved through the campground sometime during the night and I heard them walking by the truck. By morning they were gone. Today was a bit of a different story though...

Just before 5 am I was violently roused from my sleep by the extremely loud bugling of a bull elk that I thought might have actually crawled in the truck with me. After hitting my head on the roof and spinning around in my sleeping my bag a few times I composed myself enough too look out the window and see the bull standing about 5 feet from my truck. I looked around a bit more and found that I was in the middle of a heard of about 25 elk. They decided it was a good place for breakfast. I had to stay in the truck for about 20 minutes while they hung out in my campsite.

After that it was back out and about in the park. My first stop was at the petrified tree where a mother and cub black bear were hanging out eating vegetation. I stayed there until the rain and the need to use the restroom drove me away in a hurry.







There wasn't much other action going on in the park so I ended up driving around all over again. I did get some bad news that a Great Grey Owl near Canyon had been hit by a car and would probably not make it. I really hope it wasn't the one I had been shooting.

At the end of the day I shot some new Aspens for my Aspen Dreams series. Then it was off to dinner and hanging out in the lobby of the Mammoth Hotel. I stayed there as late as I could limiting the time necessary to be out in the very cold rainy snowy evening. Just before leaving the hotel I watched two bull elk going at it in the grassy area in front of the hotel. The battle was a bit of a mismatch as one of the bulls was significantly larger than the other.






Thursday October 4, 2007

Today began on a bit quieter note. After getting ready and heading out I came upon a few ranger vehicles on the east end of the Mammoth complex I couldn't see what was going on as approached but as I passed the first rangers vehicle I was a bull elk laying on the ground bleeding.

It was a shocking site as the elk was obviously dead. Upon further looking I could see it was the smaller of the two elk I had watched the night before. According to the ranger in the visitor’s center the bigger of the two elk ran an antler through the side of the smaller elk causing its death.

Not much else was going on the park so I eventually headed out towards Missoula. This image was taken near Deer Lodge Montana just before sunset.