Same place, one day later -
and what a difference it was! Almost the whole day was sunny, even if remarkably cold. Bison were happily feeding and sleeping, elk were abundant and relaxed in the knowledge that the strange sounding and smelling things won't do any harm to them. The geysers and springs made easier photo subjects because one could actually see them, now that there was no dense snowfall. And occasionally the random geyser erupted just when we were standing right next to
it.
Wherever the people were hiding yesterday, they were back today, and with a vengeance. People pulling over for elk and bison were causing major traffic jams, but actually so were bison themselves: the fact that I was observing the posted low speed limit was a good thing when coming out of a turn we run into a major herd of bison, who apparently came to
the conclusion that a paved road is easier to navigate than the snowy plains.
After lunch we
caused a traffic jam ourselves, stopping to capture (on disk, at least) a coyote,
obviously feasting on a fresh catch of young elk, with elk mom still staying nearby and making rather sad and loud noises. Another coyote came in front of my telephoto lens later this
day.
Pot had his 15 minutes of fame today, too. In a parking lot I sighted a black bear up the hillside. Once I started pointing my apparently authoritative telephoto lens in that general direction, more and more people started gathering near me, asking about what, where, and how long the lens was (with converter, 1300mm). After a while I had more pictures of a black bear than I could possibly handle in one day, and so I switched to wide angle again and Essan and I departed to the nearby waterfall. At that
point we saw about 30 people assembled around Pot, which I am sure gave him a special feeling of appreciation at such a young
age.
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The waterfall
was nice. It was nice from above, but after the steep hike downhill the experience of noise and water spray was quite amazing. The muddy and steep hike back up was a fair price to pay for this display of Mother
Nature.
From above the waterfall we could see a mother mountain goat with her young roaming the cliffs of the canyon. The ease with which the two were moving was amazing. The difficulty which I had focusing the lens and keeping the exposure right is equally amazing, just in a negative way. Maybe we were just tired after a long day hiking around, and so after a scenic drive where we saw many more animals we retreated for a good dinner.