Janine has just finish updating our page of Yellowstone National Park Photos from our spring trip.  If you were following the blog during that time, you will probably recognize many of the photos.

Back to our spring photos – this was five separate photos of the Upper Geyser Basin, the Old Faithful Geyser and Inn and the other Park Service hotels in this popular part of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

The Yellow-Bellied Marmots around here are similar looking, but have different coloring from the Hoary Marmot we have in Alaska.

As prevalent as Elk are in the fall in Yellowstone, I thought finding calves would be as easy as finding buffalo calves.  Fortunately I local friend and photographer warned me these little guys are hard to find as the cows keep them hidden away in the thick brush.  Elk calves have almost no scent when born, so as long as they are out of sight, they are difficult for predators to find.  Even so, up to two-thirds of the new calves in Yellowstone are killed by predators, mostly wolves and bears.  I was lucky to find this cute little guy! 

This was exciting – I had never seen a badger in my life.  I found this den in the hills behind Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park.

Read more about our travels to Yellowstone National Park on our photo blog.

A field of buffalo at sunset or sunrise is an image I envisioned from the very beginning of our visit to Yellowstone.  It seemed easy to find fields of buffalo, and sunsets or sunrises are fairly regular, so how hard could it be?  Well I tried over and over and if I could find buffalo, there was no sunset, and when there was a killer sunset – no buffalo.  Well I finally caught the combination at the same time the other night – and not a day too soon.  Friday we are going to head back to the Tetons for the finally couple weeks of this trip.  It is hard to pull ourselves away from Yellowstone, but I know we are going to say the same thing about the Tetons in a couple of weeks.

We now have a section on our website of Buffalo – Bison Photos. 

Middle Geyser Basin right at sunset, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Yesterday while hiking around in this steep canyon looking for landscape opportunities, I stumbled across the remains of a magnificent 6 x 6 bull elk!  Predators most not have found the carcass as even the leg bones were completely intact and connected to the body.  The rack lacked velvet, he must have died last fall or winter, it makes you wondered what could have happen to such a huge bull in his prime.  Maybe he was past his prime and died of old age.

Soon after this Janine spotted a fox, and we ended up following it ways up the steep mountain side.  It was here we found the bones of at least 2, and possibly 3 more elk.  These had obviously been devoured by predators as the bones were scattered around a large area.  This is prime wolf and bear habitat, and an area I have seen few elk – it is easy to see why!

The Mystic Falls trail is a great little 4 mile loop that should be high on any Yellowstone visitors must do lists.  It begins on the backside of the boardwalk at Biscuit Basin just a couple of miles from Old Faithful.  The trail runs along side a pretty little creek known at the Little Firehole River.  Mystic Falls itself is just 1.2 miles down this trail.  Mystic Falls is a scenic multi tiered 70 foot cascade surrounded by some warm steam vents.

You could turn around right here, but I would strongly recommend doing the entire loop – this way you will see the Observation Point pictured below.  The Observation Point provides a wonderful panoramic view of the entire Upper Geyser Basin.  If you look at the photo closely, you can see the Old Faithful area in background.

The trail is in great condition, and the climbs all have nice switchbacks to soften the elevation gain.  You do climb about 1,000 vertical feet to reach the Observation Point, that isn’t too bad, but keep in mind you are climbing from about 7,000 to 8,000 feet – you will probably be sucking more air then you are used too, especially if you just arrived to Yellowstone.  Your efforts on this trail are well rewarded.

On previous visits, I have wandered around and photographed the outside of the historic Old Faithful Inn, but never bothered to step inside.  I had no idea what I was missing until seeing footage of the inside on a Travel Channel show on Yellowstone.  Wow!  I have seen other hotels with huge, impressive lobbies like the Old Faithful Inn, but none of them were built entirely of logs over a 100 years ago!  It really is a beautiful structure.

The days are getting long – I got into camp the night before about 10:00 p.m. from Grand Prismatic Spring, and we had to get up at 4:15 a.m. to get this photo.  Why so early for an interior?  Two reasons.  First, because it is so dark inside, I found the light streaming in from the windows was overpowering my day photos of the interior.  I needed to have it almost dark outside to get a nice balance.  The other reason, it would be the only time the lobby was empty – evenings the place is very busy.

Here is more posts about Yellowstone on this photo blog.  In addition, check out our collection of Yellowstone National Park Photos.

Two days ago I posted a photo of the Grand Prismatic Spring.  This is a photo of the water running off the spring and into the Firehole River.  The amazing color is usually hidden by steam, but just enough wind was blowing last might to reveal this wonderful site.  I had to use a telephoto lens since I had to photograph this from across the river.  I shot this after the sun had set and the lack of light required a multi second exposure, that is why the water is so smooth and milky.  I aso used a polarizer filter to help remove any glare from the wet rocks – this helps bring out the rich colors.  The final result was a pleasant surprise.

The Doublet Pool in the Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Read more about our travels to Yellowstone on this photo blog.

A lone visitor walks along the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday.  What an amazing, colorful hot spring this is!  According to the Park Service, Grand Prismatic Spring is 370 feet in diameter and 121 feet in depth.  The color is what I find amazing.  I’m hoping to return to this mountainside viewpoint on a warmer day when there is less steam to show even more of the amazing blue color.

What would a trip to Yellowstone National Park be without a photo of the Old Faithful Geyser!  I now have a bunch.  That is the famous and historic Old Faithful Inn on the right.  Look how empty the boardwalk is in the morning, I think there are 3 people down there - nothing like the afternoon.  This is one image out of 4 that will eventually make a panoramic of the Upper Geyser Basin.

Morning Glory Pool has to be one of the most colorful features in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.  It is a nice easy mile walk down a paved trail from Old Faithful.

Buffalo calves are really fun to watch.  They often stand or lay around doing nothing, then without warning, they will take off running in circles, jumping and leaping about like they just won the lottery - it can be very entertaining!

This is looking at a group of bison and straight into the sun at sunrise in Yellowstone National Park on Thursday - the sun is just above the frame.  The below freezing temperatures enhanced the mist and fog.

A bison calf suckles from its mother at sunset, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

We moved up to Yellowstone on Tuesday, and yesterday (Wednesday) we were fortunate enough to find this coyote den with 9 (yes nine) pups!  They were so much fun to watch.  We even watched the mom nurse.  Here the pups are chasing after their mom – whenever she was close, they were trying to nurse.

I can’t believe we are already hitting the road again this weekend.  We didn’t really allow for enough time in the office, but that’s ok, we can’t miss this time of year!  I’m really excited about our upcoming travels. 

We are going to fly down to Palm Springs and pick up our trailer.  Then we will spend about 5 days in the Mojave Desert, I hoping to photograph baby quail in much better light then I did last year.  I’m also going to spend a little time in an area where there have been bobcat and cougar sightings – I know that is a long shot.

Next we will spend about a week in the Vegas area adding to our travel coverage.  I particularly would like to spend some time at Red Rock State Park.

The highlight of our trip will be the month we will spend in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton area.  We have passed through the area and stopped briefly in the fall, but we have never been there in the spring, nor have we been able to invest this kind of time.  I hoping to get lots of baby wildlife, and some good landscape opportunities as spring takes over that region.  It should be a lot of fun.

We should be back to Alaska by the 4th of July, and then I will head down to the Southeast Alaska Panhandle to add to our stock coverage, and for some assignment work.

I’m reluctant to share our plans because they tend to change so often, but that is the plan for now.  As an example, we had the same plan last year, but after a couple of days in the Mojave Desert we changed plans and I drove straight from Palm Springs to Alaska for an assignment.

I will continue to post to the blog as I travel much like I did this winter, but it will be a little more sporadic due to the long days and limited Internet access in some places.