Yellowstone

A trip that I look forward to every year is our family trip to Yellowstone / Island Park. Always a fantastic time as I get to combine 2 of my passions in life, my family and wildlife photography. 7" of snow in Island Park couldn't even slow us down. All of the animals in the park were pretty active. The elk were rutting pretty hard and all the other animals were on the move. It was fun to see the whole family involved and I must say they are good sports considering I get them up pretty early and drag them around until the sun has set. It makes for a long day but the memories made were priceless. We were able to see every major specie of animal in the park except for moose. I have now officially traveled every square inch of road in the park as we traveled through places I hadn't been before. My boys were on mission to see a grizzly bear and I was not going to disappoint. As it got later in the evening I started getting nervous and frustrated. I learned that we had just missed a mother griz and her cubs as they were hanging out less than 100 yards from the road. We finally found our griz though, and it was the closest we've ever been. We were 80 yards from this magnificent animal. This time of year the bears are pretty active as they get desperate to get fat for the winter. They will spend the entire day eating. This guy spent hours digging in the dirt and I believe he was either eating some sweet roots or insects. Mase was beside himself with excitement - and that, my friends, is worth everything to me... Till' next year :)



An HDR shot of Mammoth Springs




Here's my Mason watching every move of his griz through his binoculars.


400mm, f5.6, 1/200, iso400


In this pic you can see whatever he is eating hanging from his mouth.