Yellowstone GALLERY POSTED

After a horrific three-day road trip through one blizzard after another, we made it to Yellowstone. It was 40 below zero last week here, 21 below zero a couple of days ago, but it is rather balmy here right now - temp is 35 degrees before daylight this morning! First morning we got into some great wolf, coyote, bighorn sheep, eagles, and oh yes, lots of buffalo. We are heading to the interior of the park today via snowcoach - I only hope it is colder in the park than here at our hotel in Montana, otherwise I will be down to my shorts! We had temps from 7 to 31 in the park yesterday, with some snow. The bighorn above is fullframe...

That's a pretty healthy looking sheep Tim. The cold doesn't seem to be bothering him too much - looks happy as a lark. I really love the detail in his eyes.

What lens were you using here? I'm also interested to know how your camera gear is holding up under the extreme cold conditions.

Glad you're seeing lots of wildlife, and thanks for sharing this one - very nice!

That's a great looking bighorn! I just hope you brought along enough intermediate clothing to keep you going in such temperate conditions! Actually, I was kind of curious if there would be any issues with cameras at those temperatures. I have a couple of friends who regularly guide up there and they have had a couple of frozen LCD camera displays, but that's about it. Hope your trip is great!

Beautiful bighorn. Have a great trip. Don't get too hot :).

Just got back in this evening from another 12-hours day in the park shooting. Temps were in the 20's and 30's but with sometimes stiff winds blowing which brought the wind chill down pretty low. It was kind of fun riding around all day in a snow coach - actually a 15-person van with four-wheel "tracks". Most of the park is only open to tracked vehicles, including these special vans and a handful of 4-cycle snow mobiles. I was really surprised at how QUIET these snowmobiles actually are - in fact you hardly even hear them running. The snow van.

Our very first stop this morning was to photograph a small pack of wolves feeding on a bison - which included a white alpha female (very rare). This lady was the boss of this kill and let the others in her pack know it. I shot 7gb with the Nikon 500mm at this one spot (the wolves were within 50 - 200 yards of us most of the time). Alpha Female taking a break from breakfast.

We shot a lot of graphical landscape shots today (you folks in the black and white printing workshop in a copule of weeks will get to see some of those), plus more wildlife and a few geysers. One of my favorite shots of the day was of a lone tree in a landscape that looked totally unreal in person and even more so on the computer. I had to scream a little bit to get the van driver to stop - how could anyone drive past this scene! The light was chaning rapidly and I grabbed my camera and tripod and sprinted back down the road to find the viewpoint I wanted - I'm sure everyone thoughtI was just nuts, although I'm not sure it actually took them two days to figure that out. This is the fullframe shot right out of the camera - Lone Tree.

No issues with the camera lcd or batteries (I've only been using about 1/2 a battery per day). Been shooting wildlife with the Nikon 500 and 70-200. Running through lots of memory cards. Five or six more days of shooting to come, and it looks like more balmy weather ahead...

Great shots Tim, I can't wait to see you Gallery! The snow van is really interesting and Lone Tree is outstanding.

Keep'em coming! I wish I was there with you.

OK, one last shot before I retire this evening. Here is one of the wolf "pups" that hung around and munched on the bison after the alpha male and female had left the scene - it is kind of gross. Wolf & bison.

And for those of you who are interested, this was the "Hayden Pack" and we found them along the Gibbons River (there are 13 wolf packs in Yellowstone - this is the smallest with only four surviving wolves).

Great stuff Tim! Glad you're having such a great time! I'd love to get to spend some time there in the winter seeing the park and it's wildlife.

I know it sucks being you and having to work so hard ... but not everyone can sit in an office and shuffle paperwork all day long! You'll just have to tough it out and keep dreaming of having my job one day!

Take care and be safe!

I like the wolf shots Tim, maybe not quite as well as the one "close-up" I remember from last year, but still very nice. I know you're there mainly for wildlife photography, but I'm hoping you'll have a chance to get over to shoot some of the hot spring areas where the water and minerals have such beautiful colors. Man, that's all nice country up there...

Tim I love your lone tree shot. I've been trying to find one of those compositions myself but around here if you find a tree you also have an overgrown fencerow behind it.

Enjoy Yellowstone, I've been there twice and it isn't enough. FWIW the Old Faithful webcam shows 53 deg right now so I expect you're probably down to shorts and a T-shirt.

We had a great day yesterday chasing more wildlife and snowy scenes, and today we got into a bunch of big bull elk, then more wolves and a few misc. scenes. Very pleasant temps with lows in the teens and highs in the upper 30's. We are headed into the interior of the park again tomorrow via the snow coach, and they are calling for some cooler temps and a good bit of snow. The hot spring areas don't really look at that interesting at this time of the year since - guess what - there is no snow around them at all since the temps are so hot! Nice to see them though, and they generally do attract some wildlife. Here is a shot for ya from first thing this morning. Bull elk at sunrise.

Hey Mr Ernst.

Some fine looking images you are posting. I've been telling folks for sometime that you had potential as a photographer.

Glad to see you are having a good and productive trip. Stay warm.

Wheeler

I like your elk shot - looks like a gorgeous sunrise yesterday in the park! I guess the hot springs aren't what I envisioned - wish there was more snow. But it looks like more is on the way though. Thanks for sharing the sunrise and report.

Not sure why I keep posting to this thread since this is not in our region, but you guys keep looking so what the heck! We had good snow nearly all day today, and shot more wildlife and a couple of nice waterfalls along the Gibbons and Firehole Rivers. Today was the first day that we did not see any wolves, although we did inspect a buffalo that a pack killed a couple of days ago that was nothing but bones, with a few eagles and ravens hanging around. At one point the snow was so heavy and the winds high - and blowing straight into the camera - that it was impossible to take more than one or two frames before having to wipe the lens of snow that melted on impact (since it was so warm). Here is one shot during that particular snowstorm - Bison in the snow.

Bill - some of the springs have color in them right now, but they are not as colorful as in the summertime (I don't recall the details, but in the winter there is more green produced and not so much red and orange). They are at their most colorful in mid-summer during a bright sunny day.

Going back a few posts (keep 'em coming!!!) - I really enjoyed picture of the wolves eating the buffalo. Gory? Yes. But what a beautiful and timeless reminder that nature is and has always been "...red in tooth and claw..." (Tennyson).

My last post for this thread. We had a good day in Yellowstone on Friday with heavy snow all day. Got to watch a pack of nine wolves for a couple of hours, with both grey and black wolves in this pack. We were more than 1/2 mile away from the pack, and the 1000mm+ lens (500mm lens x 1.5x crop x 1.4x extender) came in handy.

We fled the park this morning and are holed up in South Dakota tonight - snowing with temps near zero, going below zero by daylight. I guess we had the warmest weather of the entire week while we were in Yellowstone, with cold temps everywhere else - supposed to be the other way around!

I will post some notes in the Cloudland Journal probably Tuesday or Wednesday, along with a gallery of photos from the trip. In the meantime, I'm with Tom and hope we get lots of RAIN in Arkansas this next month or two!

Lone Wolf.
Coyote.
Wolf Pack. (This is a chunk out of the middle of a single frame - scroll to see all nine wolves.)

Tim, enjoyed this thread a lot thanks for sharing!

Oops, I forgot to post this one photo of a herd of buffalo - this will make a fine BW print. I found many graphic scenes in Yellowstone that were mostly void of color.

One note about the photo tour that I was on and this photo - I yelled at the driver to PULL OVER when I saw this image (you can't back up easily in one of those snow coaches), then jumped out with my camera and tripod and waded out into the deep snow to compose this shot that I had seen from the road. After several minutes of really concentrating on getting just the right framing for this shot I finally looked up and realized that EVERYONE else from the snow coach was lined up right behind me in the snow just waiting for me to get finished up and move out of the way - that is a sign you have found a good composition!

Buffalo herd.

Tim, Love the buffalo herd comp, as you said this would make a fine b&w. Thanks again for sharing your photo trip!

That's a beauty Tim! I hope to see that one in print during our Spring CSNP fling! Thanks for taking us along on your trip.

For anyone who might be interested in a photo trip to Yellowstone or elsewhere, I can highly recommend Dale and Lorri Franz - they have a first-class setup and are really interested in getting you into position to get some great photos. These are not workshops, but rather photo tours, so you can maximize your time in the field shooting.

FRANZ PHOTO TOURS

Tim - your Buffalo Herd image is beyond words. Magnificent might come close though...

I'm starting to think about applying for one of those driver jobs up there. Hummm, I wonder how much they pay...

The snow coach driver owns his own company and has been leading tours in Yellowstone and other places (including several years in Africa) for many years. He was a 17-year old Canadian when he first came to Montana to become a smoke jumper, and has led a storied life ever since. The only problem I had with him was that he continued an almost non-stop dialoge of wonderful historical and biological information the entire time he was driving - which was all very interesting - but I just wanted him to stop at all the scenic spots along the way so I could take pictures! The photo tour leader, Dale Franz, is one of only a handful of guys I know who makes a good living from nature photography - and he has been doing it for 30 years with a large stack of magazine covers to his credit. A great guy and family to deal with for sure, and one who knows what he is doing behind the camera. Well worth every cent...

Here is a pair of Alpha wolves - a female and a male - getting ready to fool around a little bit (can't post those photos due to the G rating of this nature board!).

Alpha wolves.

Tim, I like the pose that you captured the two wolves in, not a behavior side of the wolf that is often seen.

David

You always expect to see buffalo everywhere in Yellowstone, but still we were surprised to come around a corner and find them hiking down the middle of the highway - for more than a mile! And also they didn't mind using the boardwalks in the park. I guess they were just seeking the easy route to whever they were headed...

Buffalo using the highway and boardwalk.

Those are healthy looking buffalo. The ones I see always look like they are falling apart.

Most of the buffalo we saw were quite healthy. I found it interesting how they cleared the snow out of the way to look for grass in the deep snow - they used their heads, swinging back and forth, to clear out the snow down to the ground, then would graze for a few minutes, then swipe their heads back and forth again to open up more ground. This got their faces all covered with snow for that classic Yellowstone in winter look. The only problem was that they were eating so much they almost never took the time to look up at the photographer! (even with a few snowballs tossed at them - just kidding on that part...)

I finally got around to a bit of editing and processing and you can find 82 images from the Yellowstone trip online now. This is a trip I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in wildlife photography (winter in Yellowstone), and you don't have to fight the crowds (only the lens envy you will get while hanging around all of the wolfarazzi).

Ernst YELLOWSTONE in Winter photo gallery.

Tim - these are just simply fantastic!

Sounds like my kind of trip! I'd really like to see Yellowstone in the absence of thousands of people.

Beautiful work Tim!

Excellent work Tim, some real beauties in there. A place I would love to go to as an adult. I traveled there as a kid w/ my parents, and would love to go back as a photographer. Beautiful work, seems like a great trip!