This year my wife and I made our way out west for our anniversary. Both of us are amateur wildlife photographers and I thought this would make a great place for photo opportunities. We flew into Billings, MT and stayed in Red Lodge the first night to head down to the target destination the next morning - Yellowstone. It snowed that night in the higher elevations and the Beartooth Pass was close due to road conditions, so the next morning we traveled down though Cody, WY to enter Yellowstone from the east gate. Montana started our photo safari with some beautiful opportunities.
I was using this trip as a dream hunt, but with camera in hand instead of handgun. I was hoping to photograph bull elk, bull moose, bighorn ram, mountain goat, black bear, grizzly, mule deer buck, pronghorn buck, bison bull, wolf, wolverine, and badger - all on my dream hunts list. And yes, Wyoming happens to to have all these critters - I'm extremely jealous. Yellowstone didn't disappoint with photo opportunities. Timing was perfect! The rut for elk, bison, and pronghorn was in full swing and some hikes off the beaten paths revealed experiences some will only experience by watching the discovery channel.
We made out way south into the Grand Tetons where the fall foliage was in vibrant beauty!
The Tetons also offered some great photo opportunities...
We had fulfilled most of the critters on my hit list, but was still lacking some, but not for the lack of trying. We headed west in search of badgers for I'd heard Idaho had many. While in search of badgers, we came across the elusive "sixshot"; often read about but rarely seen.
He and his lovely wife gave us a guided tour of Soda Springs and even gave me the opportunity for a badger photo...
Before leaving Idaho, sixshot told me of a "rock problem" they had there in Soda Springs and suggested grabbing a sixgun and some lead to see if we could exterminate a few. He grabbed his OM flattop 44 mag with some hand cast loads and we headed out in search of rocks. Didn't have to go far before we got into a mess of 'em.
He warned me that the rocks were hunted pretty heavily and would not be easy to get a close shot and most shots would be at extended ranges - sounds fun!
Although I did kill a few rocks, the population wasn't hurt in any way.
Our 10 days out west was an experience we'll never forget and the day spent with sixshot and his wife was one of the highlights of the trip; even though the local ice-cream store was out of huckleberry shakes.
This is just a snap shot of the photo opportunities, for we took hundreds of pictures - some are absolutely stunning. It just too many to post.
