Thanks to all who have played along with me on my current road photo journey. After only a couple of postings, and using pretty non-descript images at that, I’ve been found! My friend Beverly (@BeverlyEverson on Twitter) successfully told me I was in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve been here a little over a week now and will be here another couple of days, before heading back home.
During my wonderful stay, so far I have seen the Black-tailed Plateau wolf pack (14 wolves), a single wolf (believed to be a “lost” pup from the Agate pack), lots of bison, pronghorn antelope, trumpeter swans, red fox, coyotes, elk, bighorn sheep, several species of ducks, Canada geese, and a lot of fun-to-watch ravens! I’ve also been able to photograph some really magnificent scenery. Over the next few blog posts, I will feature some of my favorite images from this trip.
In today’s post, I’m going to talk a bit about the “wonderful” weather we had during our stay. When we arrived here, the weather was rather typical … cold and snowy, as one would expect to see in Yellowstone NP in the winter. A few days later, I met up with a group of hearty photographers from the Rocky Mountain School of Photography and we went as a group to the interior of the park. After a fantastic snowcoach trip from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, we were welcomed with brutally cold temperatures … we awoke to temps as cold as -35°F!!! But these cold temperatures helped to transition our environment into a Winter Wonderland, especially around the many thermal pools and geysers.
As steam rises from these breathtaking thermal features, the steam hits the trees (or anything else in it’s way) and immediately freezes to the surface! As you will see in many of my images, many trees were well-crusted with a very thick coating of frost and frozen snow. Here are a couple of examples:
Like I mentioned, the steam froze to any surface available … even me:
The above photo of me was made by photographer David Marx, one of the workshop leaders who specializes in winter sports photography. This image was made at the Mammoth Hot Springs Upper Terraces, shortly after sunrise … Brrrrr!
By the way, if you are interested in photographing Yellowstone NP in it’s wintery splendor, I highly recommend looking into this workshop by the Rocky Mountain School of Photography … very knowledgable and personable leaders and outrageous scenery/wildlife!
If you missed my previous posts from Yellowstone NP, you can click on these links:
- Where’s Jimmy? (Post #1 of Yellowstone NP leg of trip)
- Where’s Jimmy? (Post #2 of Yellowstone NP leg of trip)
