2500

27 Feb 17 Our second day into the park found us beginning by getting one vehicle stuck, then helping another individual (twice) who was stuck and who I found out today was doing similar stuff for several days in the park, followed by us getting trapped in the park. In between we were racing back and forth looking for the animals which for the most part weren't there. But we did see some bison on several occasions of which today's portrait was the first. This guy, and another a few feet away, were moving the snow away with their massive heads looking for whatever browse they could find under the snow. As we drove slowly by him he took a couple of breaks to give us a good looking over. Working his way through snow 2 - 3 feet deep, he took his time doing his best to find something for breakfast. My guess is he spent the better part of the day looking for his meal. By the time we got back to this part of the park 36 hours later, having been trapped overnight, he was no where to be found. As you can see from the photo, the snow was falling which it did all day on and off getting worse as the day progressed culminating in 14 foot drifts by late afternoon resulting in the park's closure. This is basically a straight from the camera shot. Nikon D500; 80 - 400; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/1000 sec @ f /9.

28 Nov 16. Our first day in the park had us playing tag with an ever threatening storm as we worked our way from the park's west entrance to Old Faithful. Along the way we paid a visit to the Fountain Flat area directly north of the thermal zones. It's a dead end road to a day time only camp ground allowing for access to both the Nez Perce and Fairy Creeks, both of which are tributaries to the Firehole River which joins the Gibbon River to form the Madison River, a main MT trout fishing river. As we approached the eating area we had anglers on our right and a nice herd of bison on our left with the storm clouds overhead. Before we could park to get out and do some shooting the storm decided to lighten its burden and in a moments time we found ourselves, as did the bison, in a gully washer. We remained in the vehicle shooting out through open windows but the bison just had to stand there and take it. This guy just let it fall on him and run off for a couple of minutes, then just shook himself and began a slow but purposeful walk toward a small stand of trees. (Zoom in and you can see the rain falling.) By the time he made it there the rain had quit so he took a ninety and headed down to the creek for a drink. We just left looking for more subjects which we were to find a few minutes later along with a break in the clouds accompanied by both sunshine and some very lovely storm light. This is almost straight from the camera save for a bit of selective enhancing of the sky to properly bring out the clouds as we saw them. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.