Eggs
and tomatoes started the day. We got off
a little earlier and headed straight toward Lamar Valley. The sunrise this morning came from angels on
high! There is no doubt of God in action
when you see sunrises like this one; a spiritual experience for sure!
As
we headed into Tower, there was a family of pronghorn in the sage meadow on the
left. We found a safe spot, pulled off,
and began to shoot. These are the
fastest land animal in North America.
Scientists say that they developed their speed 1000s of years ago when
cheetahs were present on the plains of Yellowstone. For this group to be so docile and allow us
to make images of them was amazing!
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| male pronghorn antelope |
After
the pronghorn it was time for a wee stop.
In the parking lot, Cheri spoke with a guide who told her wolves and a
grizzly had been seen at Slough Creek that morning around 7 am. It was now 8 am and we decided to check it
out. She told us to go toward Lamar
Valley and at the first pit toilet on the left turn onto the dirt road. She
said we’d see the people. She was right
about the people!! There were a ton of
them on two peaks overlooking a massive plain.
There
weren’t any wolves but there were 10s of bison!
As we spoke with people on the ridge, we learned that the wolf had
indeed been in the region, but that you could only see them through a spotting
scope at great distance. No way our
cameras could capture that – nor do we own a spotting scope. The area was very pretty and we enjoyed it
anyway.
 |
| Bison |
 |
| coyote |
We
left there and headed into Lamar Valley.
We drove on almost to the northeast entrance where the Mountain goats
live. We didn’t see any goats, but
talked with people who had seen them.
On
the way back we selected a pull off next to the river for our ham, dill pickle
and brown mustard sandwiches. We each
had our favorite salsa for our tortilla chips:
Cheri – Salsa Verde and John Pace medium salsa.
Well
it was almost as if lightning struck….Cheri experienced an N-2 failure – two
things broke at the same time on her beloved camera. The shutter stopped functioning and the
100-400 mm lens wouldn’t twist off. How
bizarre!! We worked on it for quite a while
and no luck. With the shutter broken the
camera wouldn’t take pictures; just kept giving err 20.
Of
course there is no cell signal in the park, so we headed back for Gardiner
thinking we would need to drive to Bozeman or Billings to get it fixed. Once we got back into cell range, we surfed
the internet and got numbers for the shops in Bozeman. After a short conversation it was clear that
no one, but Canon, could fix this problem.
So, we called Canon and they said ship it back; nothing to be done in
the field and possibly nothing in the shop.
Cheri also called BorrowLens.com to see if she could get a backup rig
shipped in. The earliest it would arrive
would be Thursday. So – that wouldn’t
work. We discussed going to Billings or
Bozeman to a Best Buy and buying the new underwater camera gear that Cheri has
been considering. After some dialog,
Cheri realized that she didn’t really want the Sony gear she’d been
contemplating and it didn’t have a long lens anyway.
So
– with that Cheri was resigned to being a viewer not a shooter. John had other ideas. He decided to give his rig to Cheri to shoot;
rationalizing that she was the one
always changing lens and he loves her so that was that as far as he was
concerned.
He
took her camera and started playing with it.
There is a feature called “live view” that allows you to look through
the rear panel and shoot video. It eats
the battery like crazy and is hard to focus with, but, “what if you could shoot
photos too?” John, who loves to tinker,
decided to push it to its max. He played
with it, determined he could take photos without the shutter and proclaimed that
was his rig – period.
So
– we decided to eat early and then consider going back into the park. Back to the Iron Horse for beers and dinner!
Cheri had a bison steak and John had elk bolognaise.
The
light was amazing after we ate and so we loaded up and headed in. After we cleared the ranger station, there is
a section of river with yellow bushes.
An elk and his harem were embedded in it! Talk about picturesque! We shot away.
John playing with live view using his tripod and Cheri running up and
down the side of the road shooting away!
John learned a lot about the technique needed to be successful with live
view.
 |
| Elk |
 |
| Elk |
We
pressed on and decided to go back out to Slough Creek to see if the wolves had
returned. No luck! We also thought we might get some clear skies
so we could shoot the Milky Way. No
luck!
Home
to bed - exhausted!
Enjoy-
Cheri
& John
