I have started another 3-month photographic road trip heading towards the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. During my last couple of months in Tucson I took a few good wildlife photos at Whitewater Draw, southeast of Tucson and Sweetwater, northwest of Tucson – included below are photos of Sandhill Cranes, Ruddy Duck, a hard to spot Sora, Bobcat and Coopers Hawk.

My first stop of the trip was Prescott, a longtime favorite where I stayed again at the St Michael’s Hotel, a historic 4 story brick landmark on the corner of Whisky Row and Gurley Street. I spent late afternoons in Jersey Lilly’s bar, a 1900s former place-of-ill-repute, on its large balcony overlooking the Courthouse Square.  Dinner was spent twice in the Palace on Whiskey Row, a 19^th century historic landmark considered one of the 10 greatest historic bars in the country – prior to the great 1900 fire it hosted the Earp brothers, Doc Holiday and Big-nose Kate.

Mornings I spent walking through Watson Riparian Reserve, trying (usually unsuccessfully) to get close shots of the rare and always-hiding Wood Ducks, and then continueing around Watson Lake which is often crowded with a number of species of ducks, cormorants and other birds. The photos below include the Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks, an Anna’s Hummingbird and both the Double-crested Cormorant and much less common Neotropic Cormorant.

From Prescott I will drive up through Holbrook and the Petrified Forest National Park and on to Cortez, Colorado in the 4-Corners area. Later. Dave

Hello. From Northern Arizona I traveled first to Cortez in SW Colorado to spend time hiking in the Canyon of the Ancients and on the Mesa Verde top. After a week I moved on, driving through the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area for some photo ops along the Colorado River just below where it joins the Green River. From there I spent a number of days in Capitol Reef National Park for some new hiking destinations. Because the elevation of Torrey, the small Morman town at the park entrance, sits at almost 7,000 feet I found the early mornings still generally at freezing, but the mid-days were pleasant.

My hip replacement has functioned flawlessly for a year now, and I am back to finding my hiking limits (relatively short distances but including climbs) based partially on sore legs, but more than ever on soreness in the pads of my feet. I wear good hiking boots with inserts and medium heavy wool hiking socks, but I think I will need to find thicker cushioned inserts and socks for rocky terrain. On my slow progress toward Yellowstone, I currently am staying in Moab to do some short hikes in and around Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

Below are a number of Colorado Plateau scenic and colorful panoramic photos from BLM’s Canyon of the Ancients (Puebloan Culture), Glen Canyon National Recreational Area and the Capitol Reef & Arches National Parks in the Four Corners area. Until later. Dave

I spent 6 days in Moab, UT, doing short hikes daily inside Arches National Park and the Islands and Needles divisions of Canyonlands National Park. I especially enjoy the climbing trek up to the famous Delicate Arch, although this trip I had to do part of the trek twice as I forgot placing my beloved hat under a rock at the Arch, while taking photos – and so retraced my steps. Unfortunately, the hat was no longer under the rock when I returned, and no one ever turned it into lost and found at the park visitor center. It was the second time I have lost the same brand of beloved hat, the first time left on the seat of a taxi in Marrakech 15 years ago. So now I will be forced to buy the hat a third time in something over 25 years. For those interested, the hats were the famous Tilley brand, sized for my head, made in Canada. I have included below a photo not of the hat, but of yours truly at the Delicate Arch, appropriately hatless for the photo.

In Moab I stayed at one of the original motels, the Apache, once on the main highway but now well off the new re-routed highway. The motel is known for hosting John Wayne during several of his movies filmed in and around Moab, most famously Rio Grande with Maureen O’Hara. He visited with his family several times in later years, staying at the same motel. The motel did sell the infamous John Wayne toilet paper, wrapped with the slogan “its rough and its tough and it don’t take crap off anyone”. Fortunately, the motel did provide another brand of paper in the bathrooms.

Just outside of Moab, inside the edge of the Arches Park, is the Courthouse Wash Panel, which was one of the great Barrier Canyon Pictograph sites, with the spectral paintings from the Archaic Period (5,000 to 500 BC) – now unfortunately forever diminished due to a one-night vandalism on April 16, 1980. Someone climbed the mountain at night and used wire brushes and soapy water to scrub the entire roughly 10 X 20 – foot painted panel, scouring all the original images. Major restoration efforts were made to recapture the images, but the original colors and outlines are forever diminished. I have climbed to photograph the panel several times, and with the newest high-resolution equipment and tools available in the Lightroom photo software, I have created several stitched high-resolution composite photos of the panel, and “enhanced” the contrast and remaining colors to bring out much of the original image, though with much subdued colors. A resulting image is included below.

From Moab I traveled to Vernal, Utah, and did some hiking in Dinosaur National Monument, including the Colorado side which in prior year visits always has had its road over the Blue Mountain closed for winter storms. The drive down to Echo Park is 14 miles of unpaved dirt, which starts with a mile descent on narrow single lane switchbacks with an average grade of 11%, much steeper at some points. If you are at the bottom after a heavy rain storm, driving out may not be possible until the road dries. Views at the bottom along the Colorado and Yampa Rivers at their confluence are worth the trip.

For the second time in this area of the Utah Colorado border I ran into swarms of Mormon Crickets, where the ground for several hundred yards appears to be a moving carpet – made up of millions of small crickets all moving together.  It very much reminded me of the one time I was inside a moving carpet of swarming Army Ants in Costa Rica. The crickets don’t sting, but it takes quite a stomach to walk and drive through the “carpets”.

Driving Hwy 40 one afternoon on a return to Vernal, the headwinds were blowing at over 40 mph and gusting much faster. This time of year, the tumbleweeds build up yard-thick walls of thousands against the barbed wire fences along the highways. The wind gusts were dislodging the tumbleweeds to fly over the barriers and then come careening head-on down the highway, bouncing up to several feet in the air as they approached for head-on collisions. It took nerve to keep driving as if into a charging army of 2-foot diameter balls of dried weed. The smacks against the hood and windshield were harrowing, though the damage was limited to stuck pieces of weed where-ever it could lodge under the car or even in the engine compartment.

From Vernal I drove up the West side of the Flaming Gorge to Rock Springs, a 19^th century coal mining town with a continuing reputation for very hard-core residents. In the town’s museum of history, I admired a plaque listing about 50 names of just some of the town’s bars over the decades. Just north and east of Rock Springs lies the Red Desert; at almost 10,000 square miles, it is the largest expanse of unfenced land in the continental US, crisscrossed only by dirt roads maintained, if at all, for reaching gas wells. I have driven parts of it to visit native American rock art sites, and this trip to visit the unusual monolith, the Boar’s Tusk, a 500-foot jutting spire of black congealed lava which once formed the plug of an extinct volcano.

I arrived in Rock Springs just in the prime season for the mating displays of the endangered Greater Sage Grouse. These live in the high plains sage brush, and during mating season the males congregate in great numbers in specific flat open sites, known as ‘leks’, year after year where the males put on elaborate displays for interested females, with the tails fanned and the entire brilliant white breast area pushed into huge upward moving pulses. It is impossible to describe, but I am sure you can watch videos online if you search. I was given directions to find a viable lek 40 miles away, and have visited twice, needing to arrive well before sunrise, and watching the displays which last generally until about an hour after sunrise. Although most of the action is males, the females which show up seem to watch individual males for a short time and then move on to the next. Very picky. No idea what they are critically looking for in the displays. While watching the grouse on both mornings I had Pronghorn walk through the Lek site.

I have the next two weeks without current plans, before my initial reservations start at the various locations around Yellowstone – so uncertain where I will venture from Rock Springs. Later, Dave

I last reported from Rock Springs in southern Wyoming. From there I traveled to Lander, checking out the Seedskadee National Wildlife Reserve, a wild portion of the upper Green River providing nesting spots for many birds including Trumpeter Swans. I got a fairly decent photo of a mating pair of Swainson’s Hawks, for me an unusual sight.  In Lander, a town with no laundromat, the only washing machine in my motel broke-down with all my travel clothing locked inside. After multiple tries, finally we got the machine open, but leaving all my clothes a soapy wet mess. The handyman tried to talk me into using the machine again to rinse and spin dry the clothing (he later tried the machine and it locked permanently); when I refused he loaded my clothing into a large black plastic bag to await my finding the next washing machine to rinse and spin them. Not a great experience, and a first for me in my travels.

My next reserved stop was in Sheridan on the East side of the wild Big Horn Mountains.  As I approached the Big Horns from the West, the weather changed to pouring rain and freezing. At noon in Worland I had lunch and checked the State Highway road conditions for crossing the mountains. The Wyoming site stated that as of 11:30 am the highway was open as long as one had all-wheel drive. I headed into the mountains. After entering the 10-Sleep Canyon I encountered a flashing red light and closed highway gate, requiring turn-back. The drive around the mountains, either North or South, would have required an extra 5 hours. I returned to Worland where I was able to get a room for the night; the hotel in Sheridan, being used to visitors being trapped on the other side of the Bighorns, graciously cancelled my first night without charge. The next day I crossed the mountains on Hwy 16 enjoying a beautiful snow-covered landscape. From Sheridan I traveled several times into the Bighorns on both Hwys 16 and 14 looking for moose, but the forest service roads, off the paved highway, all were closed for the snow.

From Sheridan I traveled back West across the Bighorns to Cody where I spent a week in a large suite in the old historic down-town area. My first day the annual horse auction was taking place outside Buffalo Bill’s historic Hotel Irma, right in the center of town a block from my room. Don’t expect the streets to be clean of horse droppings for a day or two.

A week ago I finally entered Yellowstone, and spent the first 6 days in a rented room in Gardiner on the original Northern Park entrance. I spent most days motoring around the northern loop road and through the Lamar River Valley area. Along with some snowy scenes, I made the usual initial photos of the larger wildlife in the area, including Elk, Pronghorn, Moose, Coyote, Black Bear, Grizzly and several thousand Bison – half of the female bison had newly dropped calves called “Red Dogs” due to their bright orange coloration.  During the many bison jams, when herds decide to travel down the road, I took some photos out the window with no telephoto – you can see how close by the view. All of the above mentioned animals are represented in the photos below, along with a bratty raven seeking human snacks at an overlook. The Black Bear had a newborn hiding below the bush.

I have traveled now to the West Yellowstone entrance and am in a room about 50 yards from the Park boundary. I could walk across the road and be inside the thick pine forest, but it is not recommended due to bears. My next report should have many more grizzly pics. Later. Dave

My last report from Gardiner promised more Grizzly photos; they are included below. The first mama bear is known as Obsidian because of her homebase near Obsidian Cliff. I spent 2 hours following her and her 3 second year cubs during a heavy snowstorm for some great photo opportunities. Another mama bear, known as ‘Snow’ due to her light fur when a cub, I found twice with her 2 second year cubs near her homebase of Steamboat Point. Snow was the star of my grizzly photos 3 years ago, when she performed acrobatics on the log filled mountain side near Steamboat Point. This year she paid zero attention to the groups of photographers below on the roadside. Her cubs, to my dismay, were rather sedate – no rough and tumble.

Other grizzlies include last year’s star twins in their third year – I photographed them extensively over 2 days last year when they were the second-year cubs that every 5 minutes engaged in bite and tumble rough-housing. Their mother (tagged #864) had just kicked them out a few days earlier (according to a ranger I talked to) to be on their own after 3 winters. I spotted the mother with a new huge bruiser male a few days after she kicked them out. The youngsters now were about a mile apart in the area where they were raised. The one shown sitting sadly looks lost without her mother.

I also was fortunate in photographing a lone black male wolf for which I can find no information. He was traveling through the territory of a diminished wolf pack in Hayden Valley. My photos show him to be a beautiful black with orange highlights. I have included 2 photos in close sequence while he was hunting down an under-snow rodent (he tried but failed to catch it).

I had a couple of sad moments: first while still in Lamar River Valley, at the junction of the Soda Creek, a new-born bison calf (a red dog) failed to make it across the fast flowing river with its mother, and I watched its last minute of effort to keep its nose above water as if flowed feet in front of me down stream (last year the news media extensively reported the illegal efforts of an ignorant visitor to rescue such a calf – such calves will never survive without their mothers, and drowning is preferable to being pulled from the water to freeze, be killed by coyotes or, worse, starve. The other moment was watching a new-born elk calf balk at crossing the Yellowstone River together with its mother, and then spend hours on the wrong side of the river wailing. I left without finding whether it ever took the plunge; I expect not.

Forgive me, or rejoice, for fewer pics of Bison, by far the most photographed creatures in the park, causing endless traffic delays. I have just seen too many thousands. Still, I could not help including one photo below – a closeup of a soggy half-frozen bull bison head in fine detail.

On a lighter note, I have enjoyed pizza and other junk food in West Yellowstone. Not a lot of high dining here, but occasionally also the over-priced Chinese food or burger. As with last year, the 12-mile road from West Yellowstone to Madison Junction, by late morning, has been often backed up bumper to bumper traffic for the entire 12 miles. By that time I am, of course, going unimpeded the other way for lunch.

From West Yellowstone I moved to Dubois in the Wind River Valley, where I drove daily up over the Togwotee Pass at the 10,000-foot continental divide, then down into Grand Tetons National Park. No luck with more bears, but lots of mule deer and moose, and the best viewing ever of a Wilson’s Snipe, a very long-billed, short legged shore bird. The views of the Tetons, as usual, remain stunning. One aside; a location half way up the river from Dubois to the continental divide proudly exhibits its name as “Moose Dung Gulch”.

I have now moved on to Thermopolis, Wy. Set on the banks of the Bighorn River (the Wind River runs through the Wind River Gorge and exits at the southern edge of Thermopolis where it suddenly changes name to become the Big Horn River). The river continues north into Montana where it eventually joins the Yellowstone River. I will spend a few days here, probably again visiting the famous dinosaur museum, before moving on to Buffalo on the other side of the Bighorn Mountains.

Later. Dave