A Uinta ground squirrel stands on a log beside the Two Ribbons Trail in Yellowstone National Park.
Tag: Wyoming
Cornucopia
As someone who loves playing around with shapes and colors and textures, my head nearly explodes when I see a scene like this. Sadly I didn’t have a wider lens at the time but I did my best to capture how many different little scenes you could see from this one location. Two of my recent posts (the orange mineral deposits and the watery fingers) were taken from this spot but with a longer lens, plus some other pictures I may post in the future. Mammoth Hot Springs is always crowded since it is both fascinating and right next to the hotel, so as someone who is a bit crowd averse I limit my time here, but otherwise I think I could spend a week wandering around. One of my favorite hiking trails also leads up from near here.
Oh Yellowstone!
A Lovely Pair
This pair of mountain goats reminds me of a pair of Kiwis (or were they Aussies?) that I met at the lookout on the top of Mount Washburn. They were young and touring a bunch of national parks in my homeland and asked my opinions on my favorite parks. They were lovely folks and although I headed back down the trail before them, they later came running past, saying the ranger had told them there were mountain goats near the trail. I kept my walking pace and arrived a short time after them, but the goats were already all the way down the hill and moving off. I got a quick picture but a better memory, meeting nice people on the trails is one of the joys of our national parks.
The goats aren’t native to Yellowstone but they were perfectly adapted to this part of the park, I was astounded at how quickly and easily they covered the steep slopes below the trail. I was even more impressed by the time I arrived back at the car, huffing and puffing, and unconvincingly consoled myself that they’d probably be equally slow and tired if they were carrying a heavy camera and lens.
On Bended Knee
This bighorn sheep calf was getting rather large to still be nursing so it had to get down on its knees to be able to drink its mother’s milk. The mother only let it nurse for a short time before moving on.
Rolling Hills
This little section of Mammoth Hot Springs is one of my favorite parts of Yellowstone.
Red is the Tastiest Color
An elk cow reaches for red leaves on a fall evening in Yellowstone National Park.
Pine Dine
A black bear eats seeds from a pine cone high atop a pine tree on the Mount Washburn Trail in Yellowstone National Park.
Hands of the Earth
The planet is blue but its fingers green, cradling the brown earth and bringing water, bringing life.
Nursing
I was walking up to see the geothermal features in the Artists’ Paintpots region of Yellowstone and was surprised to see this elk and her calf near the trail. The calf started nursing and the mother, despite looking at me in this picture, was rather non-plussed by my presence. No one else was around so it was just a quiet little shared moment between the three of us.
Holes in the Earth
We finally got some much needed rain and I wanted to take a picture to celebrate it, but we also got high winds so I couldn’t take any macro pictures like last time. But when I took Ellie up to the dog park I saw this hole that had started to fill with water and it reminded me of another hole in the earth I like photographing, one from Yellowstone National Park (shown below). That one is one of the many geothermal features in the area and is filled with water from below, not above.
There are a few of these holes in the dog park, and since Ellie likes to run beside me in the park, I have to navigate around the holes so that neither one of us steps in one and twists an ankle (she watches me more than the way ahead, trusting me not to lead her astray). The parks folks fill them in occasionally but some dogs like to dig, so new holes always appear. They’ve been spreading sand at this end of the park the past few years and it’s a big help during the winter when rain is not hard to come by, as the sand drains well and it gives Ellie and I a safe area to run in. In the old days she’d still want to run out into the grass, but only one of us has a body built for running in such muddy circumstances, and these days even she isn’t quite as steady on her feet as age begins to take its toll.
I never imagined the dog park would remind me of my beloved Yellowstone so today’s visit made me smile almost as much as the goofball dog who waited patiently for me to take the picture, and of course expected a treat as her reward.
Boolie 