In January we did a snowcoach tour to Old Faithful, and this month we followed up with a drive through the Lamar Valley, the only road open to private vehicles in Yellowstone during the winter. We saw lots of bison, a few elk, and a couple groups of bighorn rams. We also toured the terraces in Mammoth Hot Springs, sharing the boardwalks with just a few others. I so much prefer Yellowstone in winter because the mobs of tourists are not there clogging up the parking lots. Click on an image to start the slide show at that point.
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Yellowstone in Winter
We live near Yellowstone National Park now so it is an easy mini-vacation during the pandemic. Winter is the best time to do Yellowstone because the crowds are gone and you can actually get to the thermal features that have jam-packed parking lots during the summer. We did a snow coach tour to the waterfalls a couple years ago, and this time we did the Old Faithful tour. Along the way we saw plenty of bison, a few coyotes, and a fox off in the distance.
Sometime this winter we want to do the Lamar Valley, which unlike most of the park is driveable in winter. We would hope to see elk and bighorns in that part of the park, as we did two years ago. Click on the image to start the slide show.
Saturday, January 02, 2021
Photo of the Year 2020
As I was pondering my Photo of the Year for 2020, I realized I never picked one for 2019. Thanks to the miracle of backdating, I now have one posted. See below for "Yellowstone Coyote 2019." I certainly didn't have the volume of images from which to pick for 2020, in part because the pandemic cut down my travel, and in part because we completed our move from the Midwest to Montana. I ended up picking one where I wasn't even there to hit the trigger: A mountain lion on trailcam near Luther, MT. This is my second trailcam POY, the first being 2014 with the framing elk antlers. Other 2020 images of interest were the usual 4th of July fireworks in Red Lodge, MT, deer and moose in our new yard, Badlands burrowing owls and bighorns, and elk and bears in Yellowstone.
Here are my POY selections for 2002-2019.
Junior I 2002 |
Gentoo Penguins 2003 |
Little Brothers 2004 |
Bald Eagle 2005 |
Blue Jay 2006 |
Eagle with fish 2007 |
Great Horned Owls 2008 |
Custer SP Bighorn 2009 |
Keokuk Eagle 2010 |
Sertoma Butterfly 2011 |
Dark Morph 2012 |
Night heron 2013 |
Elk Frame 2014 |
Squaw Creek Geese 2015 |
Elk 2016 |
Eclipse 2017 |
Eagle 2018 |
Yellowstone Coyote 2019 |