Category Archives: Grand Teton National Park

Off to the United States

geyser I’m off tomorrow for the United States on a 24 day photo tour. The tour takes in two major locations and was arranged by Roger Reynolds at Photoventures. For the first part of the tour we plan to explore a wide variety of locations around the greater Yellowstone area. Obviously, we’ll take in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, but a good chunk of our time will be spent photographing the flora and fauna found in the Beartooth Mountains. This is a really amazing location in South Central Montana and Northwest Wyoming. The mountains and forests around them are part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I made a similar trip back in the late spring of 2012 and got some really nice photos (see the gallery here). In case you’re wondering why you haven’t seen this gallery before; it’s because I didn’t publish it until very recently. Many of the photos were posted as part of my daily Blog for the trip, but I must have forgotten to upload the final gallery. I’ve posted a couple here as reminders.

Skeleton Trees at Tangled Creek

We were actually quite lucky on that trip because our local wildlife guide had located a Great Grey Owl’s nest deep in one of the forests on the edge of the Beartooth.

Great Grey Owlet, Beartooth Mountains

Hopefully, we’ll be lucky again this time. If not then I suspect the the second part of this tour will make up for any disappointments in so far as it takes us over to Alaska. Yep, Alaska! There we’ll be spending few days at Brook’s Lodge in Katmai National Park photographing the bears as they feed on the salmon making their way up the Brooks River.

Map of Brooks Lodge Area, Katmai National Park

We’ll also spend the remainder of our time photographing around Homer, Eagle River, and the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

All being well, I’ll post a few photos during the trip. Something tells me that I will have used the Canon EOS 7D MkII and EF 100-400m MkII combination for a high proportion of them.

Note: I don’t allow comments on Blog pages, but am more than happy to receive your thoughts on the photos and/or the tutorials etc. Just send an email to ilyons@msn.com

Wild Yellowstone – Day 4 (Jackson Hole to West Yellowstone)

The day began with another early morning visit to capture the sunrise on another of the old barns located at Mormon Row. This was followed up with visits to the Chapel of the Transfiguration and Jenny Lake.

Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park

After lunch we began the drive over to West Yellowstone. This would take us through the West Thumb Geyser Basin where we stopped for an hour to photograph the various hot springs and thermal pools. I had visited this area for the first time in October 2011, although the colours in the pools were a lot more vibrant this time.

Abyss Pool, West Thumb Geyser Basin

Another area that I had visited for the first time in October 2011 was the Firehole Lake Drive. When we arrived some very attractive cloud patterns were developing overhead. Unfortunately, they had lost much of their appeal by the time White Dome Geyser erupted.

White Dome Geyser, Firehole Lake Drive

So, here we are four days into the trip and the weather has been excellent, let’s hope it remains this way.

Images edited in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1

** Disclaimer** Above images are quick previews specifically for this blog so that friends and family can see how I’m getting on.

Wild Yellowstone – Day 3 (Grand Teton National Park)

Day 3 began well before dawn as we wanted to capture the sunrise on the Moulton Barn at Mormon Row. We were quite lucky as there was lots of broken cloud in the sky.

Moulton Barn, Mormon Row

After photographing the Moulton Barn we headed towards Moran. There we came across an Osprey nest perched on top of an electricity pole.

Osprey in Flight, Moran

Most of the rest of the day was spent photographing in and around the Grand Teton National Park. However, the highlight of the day, and probably the trip so far was a family of Great Horned Owls. We had been told by a local earlier in the day that a pair of adult Great Horned Owls along with two almost fledged chicks could be found in a secluded corner of the Gros Ventre a camp site. When we arrived, late afternoon, the chicks were in full view and therefore very easy to photograph.

Great Horned Owl Chicks, Gros Ventre