Camping in the heart of Yellowstone midwinter

My story about camping with Yellowstone Expeditions in the heart of Yellowstone National Park ran today. It was pretty awesome experience with some fun and interesting people. You can read the article, watch the video and look at the gallery here: http://bit.ly/1j2aPgf

A sun dog forms over a beam over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone National Park.

The Milky Way stretches above the lighted yurts of Yellowstone Expeditions. The camp is located a half-mile away from the Lower Falls in Yellowstone National Park.

‘The winter of the tree of life’ or ‘Some tree I shot outside of Hardin.

I thought I would try to get some epic night shots Bighorn Canyon tonight, but unplowed roads, and heavy fog made that goal impossible. Here are a couple of shots that I managed to get when the fog broke along the trip. I lit the iced-over tree with a spotlight covered with a colored gelled.

Trapped in the harsh ice of winter

I took the first picture by the Yellowstone River. It is of a splintered piece of driftwood trapped in the ice along the bank. The second picture is of cut cat tails along the bank of Lake Elmo.

Caught in the ice

Nature's flag poles

Snowy horse pasture

These were taken at a horse pasture in Huntley Project. I saw the horses standing next to the gnarly trees while I was on my way home on I-94. It took me a while to find a road back to them, and by that time, they had moved further away from the tree, but I like how the pictures turned out.

Horse pasture #1

Horse pasture #2

Horse pasture #3

Sub-zero junker

In southern Montana, we have been spoiled by an usually warm winter until today. The high was around -5 degrees with lots of wind and snow. I hope this doesn’t last for long. On the brightside, while driving around on my lunch break, I did see this cool old junker.

Snow Junker

Sunrise in Red Lodge, Montana

I had to shoot a couple of videos in Red Lodge today, so I woke up extra early and made it out there to get some sunrise shots of the snow. Normally, we would have plenty of snow here in the Billings area, but this year has been unusually warm and dry. I’m not complaining, it makes driving a whole lot less nerve racking. The first two images are HDRs made with Picturenaut.

Sunrise over a field

Old barn and an aspen grove

Just before sunrise north of Red Lodge

Rock Creek Eagle Eye