| Last year, I had a chance to go to Yellowstone in the winter. It was a great opportunity to see the park in a different season. Much of the park is closed to traffic during the winter. The first couple of days, we drove around the few roads that were open and were able to get some photos of some of the wildlife in the park. |
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| This coyote was using the main road as a trail, eliminating the need to go through the deep snow. It was fun watching him look for dinner...and then dive into the snow and come out with a Vole. As you can see, we were able to get VERY close to him. In fact, at one time he walked too close for me to get a photo with the lens I had on my camera. He was within a foot of me as he walked along the road. |
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| We spotted this ram on one of the hillsides and stopped to take a few shots of him. We found plenty of bison along the road. |
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| Bison Jam....traveling through Yellowstone, you can quickly get off your schedule...these bison decided to stand in the middle of the road for a little while before moving on down the hillside with the rest of the herd. |
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| As we were driving the road, we spotted this big bull elk up on the hillside. We decided to take a little hike up the hill and try to get closer to him for a few photos. When we reached the area, we found that there were actually about 5-6 beautiful bull elk. They even gave us a little show, sparing for a few minutes. |
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| A few Pronghorn Antelope |
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| Mammoth Hot Springs is always a beautiful place to visit. It was interesting to see how much it had changed since I was there just over a year ago. |
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| We had a few days of snow fall, which quickly covered the bison. They didn't seem to be effected by it at all. They continued to forage for food and to play. |
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| After the first couple of days, we were ready for our next part of the tour. We were going to travel by Glavel.We couldn't have asked for a better driver. He was a photographer and got us to all the best locations for shots. Yellowstone is a fascinating place anytime of the year. Winter proves to have a few obstacles to shooting that you don't usually encounter. With the mix of hot and cold, there is a lot of steam rising....which freezes over your lens very quickly if you happen to be trying to shoot. The wind and steam changes quickly...one second you can be shooting in perfectly clear and the next minute the entire scene is obscured by steam. The camera is not the only thing that gets steam all over it....there were several times I had icycles in my hair....but it was worth it. The geothermal activity provided a splash of color to the snow covered landscape. |
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| We found a few otter that had just climbed out of a hole in the ice. One of the main sites at Yellowstone is the falls. Unfortunately the day we got there, it was snowing and our view was obscured. Below, I was able to get a few quick shots of the guy cleaning the snow off of one of the buildings. He was cutting giant ice cubes and sliding them off the edge. If you'd like to see more of the Yellowstone trip, you can go to the next page....Yellowstone page 2 |
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