Day 2: Yellowstone / Grand Teton National Park GroupShoot

The theme today was RAIN!  It rained most of the day with some very short periods of no precip. The next several days say 20-30% rain so we will take it day by day and work with it.

The five of us who arrived yesterday started out this morning from Jackson, WY around 6:45am.  We traveled some of the  local roads known for wildlife. We found the usual bison, elk and pronghorn. We turned down Mormon Row Road and I spotted a young Swainson's hawk sitting calmly in a tree. We spent some time with him until he flew.... He was cooperative though.

We shot some of the Mormon barns with the Tetons in the background shrouded in fog. The shoot there was a muddy mess. I hope the Rental Car folks don't mind a little mud.  Proceeded to Oxbow Bend but Mt. Moran was obscured by fog. The eagles were still hanging out there though.

The 3 Columbus MPEGers proceeded to Yellowstone while Jared and I waited for 2 members to arrive at Jackson Hole Airport. We had a quick lunch with them and then we escorted them to West Yellowstone.  As we drove through the YNP higher elevations, there was a significant amount of snow still on the ground.. and of course, the falls and rivers are flowing well!  Gorgeous (rainy) scenery.

We ran across a HUGE bull elk in the Lower Geyser Basin grazing by the roadside... he then proceeded to cross the road in between cars minding his own business..... and that's no bull.........then we saw many baby bison (a ton of them...) grazing by the Madison River with the parents, several of the babies together. This was quite a sight to see. On the way to West Yellowstone, the Madison eagle's nest was occupied by one adult... Yes, of course, we stopped and took a few snaps.

Meanwhile, the highlight of the day for the 3 Columbus members was they came across a young grizzly in the Lake Butte Overlook along with "a million other people" (aka bear jam) and got some nice images of  him.

We all had dinner together tonight and planned tomorrow by consensus which is a 5:00 am start and we are headed to the Northwestern part of Yellowstone looking for bighorn sheep, grizzlies, and wolves ... and whatever else shows up....we plan to eat lunch out of our cars to avoid losing valuable shooting ops so the local supermarket was happy to see us!

Doesn't this sound like fun?