Saturday ~ August 07, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 7, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Saturday!

Today’s post is all about wildlife in the park.  (you know the drill, click on the image to make it larger and more detailed.)  As our guide was taking us along the road to one of the geysers, she pulled over quickly and stopped amid a lot of other vehicles.  A very large bull elk was resting in the shade of some trees.  He was huge.  I couldn’t get into the position I wanted to get a full image of him because of the terrain and the fact that our guide cautioned us that if you get too close to them they could charge.

This will give you some idea of the size of this male.  He was actually trying to sleep in the shade.  I really wanted to get closer but was told again not to put stress on the animal for its safety and my own.  I have done a fair amount of wildlife photography and it is never my intent to stress out the wildlife.  I had my 600 mm lens on the Nikon D500 body (which is a cropped sensor camera) and that me reach a focal length of 900 mm.

It wasn’t long after we left the bull elk that we came across a herd of bison.  Now in my tiny little mind the buffalo and bison were the same thing but our knowledgeable guide explained the difference.  She said there are no buffalo in the park only bison.  Their shaggy winter coat, their large heads, and hump on their back is much different than the buffalo.

The male bison kicks up some dirt in large quantities by pawing the ground and then lays his 800+ pound body in the dust and rolls in it. You could see these little dust storms all around the herd.  While it is not quite mating season yet many of the bulls are trying to attract a mate and this is how they go about it.  It is actually quite entertaining to watch the massive creatures rolling around in the dust.

This image is of the same bull after he got up from his dust-storm (on the left) to impress the lady on the right.  He was shepherding her away from the rest of the herd and had things on his mind. All the time he was following her he was emitting a loud bellow.  He kept his bellowing up all the way up the hill nudging her along the route he wanted her to take.

We didn’t see many of these calves.  They are a reddish brown and do not wander too far from their mother.  We only saw two in this particular herd.

Meanwhile this guy continued trying to move this female up the hill and away from the rest of the herd.  His bellowing was non stop.  I don’t know what he was saying but he had something on his mind worth saying a lot. 🙂

The bison eat around sage brush, which is actually poison to them.  This guy has a big chunk of sage brush stuck to his horn and you can see some of the remains of his winter coat.

We spent a fair amount of time with this herd and I shot lots of images but many of them looked alike.  So I would photograph a while and then just watch the interaction of the bison with each other.  It was very enjoyable.

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you are enjoying Yellowstone through my lens.  Tomorrow we head out to the Grand Tetons, some of the most majestic mountains in America.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ August 06, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 6, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Friday!

This was my fourth trip to Yellowstone National Park and I had never been to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone until this trip.  We had to do a fair amount of walking to see the entire beauty of the canyon.  I was completely unaware that this was in the park.

My images do not do it justice.  It is simply breathtaking to see.  All the colors, depth and breath of the canyon is truly spectacular.  I know you’re getting tired of me saying this but click on the image to see the full detail in a larger image.

I was amazed at the trees growing on the sides of the canyon walls.  I don’t know what’s keeping this tree from falling over bur you can see smaller trees taking hold along the walls.

And then you see the water falls. You can hear it as well as you get closer.  When Angie and Ben visited the canyon they hiked up to the top of the water falls.  That was too much walking and climbing for me so I let my lens do the traveling for me.

You can see people standing on the right side of the falls.  It is truly a majestic site to behold.

You can see the trees growing all around the canyon.  How they take hold and grow is purely amazing to me.

I don’t really know what else to say about the canyon except to say WOW!  It is so beautiful to see in person and like I said my images just don’t do it justice. 

One final look at the falls before we move on. 

I have some wildlife images for you in the next post (hopefully) tomorrow.  Thanks as always for checking out my blog. 

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ August 05, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 5, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Happy Thursday!

Here is another view of The Grand Prismatic Hot Spring to give you an idea of just how big this hot spring is.  I didn’t go down to walk around it as I wanted to give the perspective of its size and its total beauty.

I know you get tired of me saying this but click on the images to reveal a larger more detailed version.  These smaller images do not do justice to the beauty of the area and must be viewed in their full size to really appreciate the image.

Remember my last blog I made the statement that everywhere you look there is a picture to be made.  It was a terrible hazy day when we entered the park but it got a little better as the day wore on.  You’ll notice the bottom of these two trees are white.  They call them white sticks and they appear where ever trees are in close proximity to the hot springs.  The combination of the hot spring and minerals in the spring cause this effect.

This is some of the run off from the springs.  The water wasn’t bubbling or displaying any steam because it mixed with other water and then flowed into this creek.

Another image of the water that flows through the park.  You can see some more of the hot pools in the upper left part of this image.

The iconic geyser “Old Faithful.” On the other side of the geyser there is a huge auditorium of seats for a good view.  It was filled shoulder to shoulder with people.  Our guide brought us to this spot for a spectacular view of the eruption without all the crowd.

I think we had a better view then all those people who were squished together on the seats.  We found benches and a place to relax while waiting on Old Faithful to erupt. We were so glad we made our first day in the park a guided tour.  Alex made it possible to see all the highlights of the park and was a wealth of information about everything we saw.

Just some more hot springs.  The smell of sulfur was at times overwhelming depending on the direction of the wind.   I know that you are not supposed to step off the boarded path but a couple of times I did just briefly.  It was unnerving to say the least to feel the ground moving under your feet.  Jeanne scolded me.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Some Bison in my next post (hopefully) tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ August 03, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 3, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

Happy Tuesday!

I should have posted this address yesterday.  The tour company we used and I recommend them highly is Viator. Here is a link to their website.  –>  https://www.viator.com/Yellowstone-National-Park/d22411-ttd

Click on any of the images to reveal a larger more detailed version.  The majesty and beauty of Yellowstone is everywhere.  Everywhere you look is another photo.  Sometimes it’s overwhelming and if you have a fast shutter you can take a ton of photos of the same thing.  Trust me I know.  

As you travel through the park there are lots of geysers, mud pots, and boiling water pools.  Alex said that is the first thing she looks for when entering the park.  If there is steam coming out of the ground it is a good sign that there are pressure relief places for the volcano that is under much of Yellowstone.

This is a large pool of super hot water.  Although this photo doesn’t do it justice you can actually see the water bubbling (boiling.)  According to a book that Jeanne has the early explorers actually cooked their food with these heated pools.

And right on the edge of this dangerous pool are wild flowers thriving.  Some of the pools have the smell of sulfur but this one did not.  It was just  very hot the closer you go to it.

As I said earlier there is beauty everywhere you look.  I don’t know what happened to these trees.  There are thousands of downed trees all over the park.  Some as a result of wild fires some from the movement of the ground and still others that have died because of the minerals in the ground. 

The Grand Prismatic Hot Spring is the most photographed thermal feature in Yellowstone. That’s because of its crazy-bright colors and enormous size. 

Factoid

Deeper than a 10-Story Building
Extremely hot water travels 121 feet from a crack in the Earth to reach the surface of the spring.

Football Field on Steroids
The third largest spring in the world, the Grand Prismatic is bigger than a football field at 370 feet in diameter. A gridiron is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.

Rainbow of Colors
The hot spring has bright bands of orange, yellow, and green ring the deep blue waters in the spring. The multicolored layers get their hues from different species of thermophile (heat-loving) bacteria living in the progressively cooler water around the spring. And the deep blue center? That’s because water scatters the blue wavelengths of light more than others, reflecting blues back to our eyes.

A Living Thermometer
What living thing in Yellowstone has helped investigators solve crimes and NASA search for extraterrestrial life on seemingly inhospitable planets? Heat-loving microbes living in the Yellowstone’s thermal pools. In 1968, researcher Thomas Brock discovered a microbe living in one of Yellowstone’s extremely hot springs. In the years since, research on Yellowstone’s microbes has led to major medical and scientific advances, including the sequencing of the entire human genome.

Brian a member of our group took this image of Jeanne and I with my Nikon D5.  Yes I actually let someone else hold my beloved camera.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for the visit. 

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Monday ~ August 02, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 2, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Monday!

Today I will continue with our Yellowstone adventure.  Remember to click on the images to show a larger more detailed image.  While planning for this trip Jeanne did a really smart thing and booked a tour guide through Yellowstone.  It was a one day tour, which touched on some of the more salient parts of the park.

We did the same thing when we were in New York.  We could go to Ground Zero on our own, but it was so much more informative and enjoyable taking the guide.

We got super lucky in that our guide (Alex) was an extremely knowledgeable individual but also very accommodating.  As you look at the above image on the far left is Brian, Alex, Jeanne, Debbie, Miles (young grandson of Brian and Debbie), Sarah, and John.  Brian is from Florida and John is from Southern Missouri.

They were all a delight to be around and we all enjoyed each others company.

Alex gave us a great history lesson about the park, how to act around the wildlife and what to watch out for as well as how to get the most enjoyment out of the park.  She was in a word AMAZING!

Our tour began with some wonderful landscapes.  You can see the smoke and haze in the above image.  It had a significant impact on my images but overall I was pleased with the results.

As you are driving through the park, if you see a number of cars pulled over there is a very good chance there are wildlife nearby.

We were lucky enough to come across this large heard of elk.  There were no males present but it was enjoyable watching them graze in this beautiful valley.

We heard a gun shot near by and the elk immediately became alert.  Not too much later we learned that it was in fact not a gunshot but a nearby pine that had snapped off at the bottom and fell.  It certainly got everyone’s attention that were watching the elk.

It didn’t take them very long to decide there was no threat to them and so back to grazing they went.

Our tour is just beginning.  More images tomorrow and some more stories as well.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Sunday ~ August 01, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on August 1, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Bison

Happy Sunday!

I’m going to share an adventure with you over the next several days of our trip to the Yellowstone National Park.  I took over a thousand images (admittedly with some duplications) and created some memories that will last a life time.  Warning!  If you don’t like mountains, geysers, forests, and wild animals (especially Bison (lots of Bison)) then you probably should skip this blog.  Also if you click on the images they will reveal to a larger more detailed version of the image.

The beginning of this adventure started when I learned that Angie, Ben, and the Grand-kids were going on a two week vacation to the Bad Lands, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone.  Now I have been to Yellowstone three times in my life.  First time was as a 10 year old child in 1957.  Two years before the 7.3 earthquake that occurred in 1959.  But Jeanne had never been there but had wanted to see it for sometime.

So we planned our trip and she started reading everything she could get her hands on about the park.  We only wanted to see Yellowstone and we only wanted to spend a shot time there so we drove to Moline, Illinois.  Had a nice meal and met some really nice people who were locals and enjoying the bar and grill we stopped at.

Got up at zero-dark-thirty and headed to the airport to check in.  I hate flying and it didn’t take long to remind myself of why I hate flying.  The mask requirement, the security check, the long walk to the gate, getting squeezed into a sardine can and fighting for overhead compartment space, well okay you get the picture.

Our first stop was Denver International Airport.  We flew in a small regional jet to Denver

For those of you that have never been to the Denver Air Port, it is huge.  You actually have to take train from one boarding gate to another.  It’s just massive.  They have moving walkways, which does help some.  It is the 3rd busiest airport in the country.

After a couple of hours we boarded our second plane to Bozemon, Montana.   Interesting enough that it was a much bigger 737.  More head room but they added two more rows of seats so just  as crowded. 

Another fun thing about flying is that you have to wear the damn mask from the time you enter the airport until you’re final destination and you are outside.

We retrieved our luggage and headed for the rental car area.  We had rented a vehicle from Enterprise but there booth was closed and the agents from National Rental handled our reservation.  They gave us a midsize Caddie, which was not too bad.  It got great gas mileage, which was a good thing as gasoline was $4.29 a gallon in Yellowstone.

To get to West Yellowstone (one of the entrances to the park) you have to take highway 191 from Bozemon.  There are two things about highway 191.  The scenery is beautiful as you briefly skirt the park and contrary to what I had read it is a scary drive.  Heavy traffic and people in a hurry, combined with a two lane road that curves back and forth.  You have to pay attention to the road, which is difficult because of the beautiful scenery.  The Gallatin River wanders down the road and crosses under the road in several places.

We saw a lot of rafters on the water and so when I got the opportunity for a “pull out” I did so and photographed some of the action.  There were at least 10 rafter boats in the water and lots of screaming and yelling.  It looked like a lot of fun if I were 40 years younger.  🙂

The image above was taken by me standing just inside the guard rail from the highway, with trucks, cars, and RVs whizzing by at a heavy pace.  It was like the game “frogger” when I tried to get back to the car on the other side of the road.

I’m not sure what this rock formation is called.  It was hard to get a clear image of it because of the traffic and when there was a pull out there were trees blocking my view.

One of the things we discovered on our way down to West Yellowstone was the dense haze in the sky from all the fires in West.  It made photography a little more difficult and frankly it affected my breathing.  That smoke and the higher altitude really made walking for me difficult.

It didn’t stop Jeanne.  Every the explorer and not wanting to miss anything she traveled down a lot of different paths while I was photographing things.

While she was exploring I was blown away the shear enormity of the forest. For as far as the eye could see were trees.

More to come.  Tomorrow we’ll explore some of the park and travel down what’s called the lower loop.

Thanks for stopping by and be careful.

 

 

Friday ~ July 02, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on July 2, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts.

Happy Friday!

A couple of images from our last evening in Minnesota.  Same location as last time different evening.

I didn’t have my long lens or tripod for this image.  Just the Nikon 28-300 mm lens that I’ve had for years.  I was pleased with the results.

Click on the images to reveal a larger more detailed image.

Enjoy your day and be careful.

Tuesday ~ June 29, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on June 29, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

Happy Sunday!

I was on vacation last week.  I know how do you take a vacation when you are already retired?  Actually it’s pretty easy.  🙂

We went back to one of my favorite places on the planet.  Leech Lake near Walker, Minnesota.   We stay at a place called Trappers Landing and it is a wonderful resort with a lot of nice cabins and things for young children to do.

It was a good / bad week for me this year.  It was good because I got to spend the week with my family and be able to see the lake.  It was bad because I was sick the entire week and didn’t get to go our fishing even one day.

I love this image of Angie looking at the sunset on one of the newly constructed docks.

This is looking East.  Love how the sun lights up the clouds.  The fish flies were not as bad as last year but they were still prevalent on the lake.

I was messing around with my shutter settings and decided to try this technique.  It is a simple process of slowing down the shutter speed and then zooming the lens while the shutter is open.  I kind of like the effect.

Please click on the images to reveal a much larger and more detailed version of the smaller image on this blog.

Enjoy your day and be careful.