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Back from the Parks

10th November 2024

September Park Photos

We’re back from our September cross country vacation. This article is delayed a bit since we took a second trip out west in October. Now that I’ve had some time to organize, I’ll share a few pictures from September – concentrating on wildlife and some scenics.


One of our first visits was to Mono Lake in California.
These craggy structure is called a tufa. They are unique to the Mono Lake ecosystem.
These pretty Indian Paintbrush plants along the shores of Mono Lake
A few days later and 1100 miles north we arrive at Glacier National Park. That’s the McDonald Creek in the valley below.
Beargrass cover many of the higher slopes in Glacier
This deer was grazing close to the road near Logan Pass
Logan Pass sits near the top of Going-To-The-Sun Road. This trail takes you to Hidden Lake adjacent to Bearhat Mountain
Looking from above into one of the many valleys in Glacier.
We drove south to Mammoth Hot Springs in the north part of Yellowstone.
I spotted a Clark’s Nutcracker on a short walk along one of the trails
Here’s a close up look at one of the travertine terraces at Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs
A small group of bighorn sheet grazing in the Lamar Valley
A herd of bison marching in the Lamar Valley.
Using a long lens I captured these mountain goats a few hundred yards away in the Barronette area of Yellowstone.
The Badlands was the final park that we stopped at this trip out west.
The range of the bison includes The Badlands in South Dakota.

Here’s a few national park stickers from our sister company StickItToYourCar.com that decorate our car’s bumper.

We hope you liked seeing some of the pictures from our September vacation.

Written by: Arnie Lee

Animals in Yellowstone

10th September 2023

Visiting Yellowstone

Yellowstone Wildlife

 

I’m a frequent visitor to Yellowstone National Park with its abundance of unique thermal features – geysers, mud pots, steam vents, hot springs.

Yellowstone also is home to amazing wildlife.

While I took many more pictures than presented here, below are some of the ones that I liked best from my last visit this year. There isn’t much text here, just the visuals.


A pair of sand hill cranes in the Lamar Valley

a prairie dog near the Old Faithful Geyser

a dusky grouse near the northeast entrance

a bison in the field at the Midway Geyser Basin

a mule deer foraging near Lewis Lake

a pair of mountain goats in the Baronette Mtns – they were about 1/2 mile away

a bison calf with Mom crossing the road in the Lamar Valley

a black bear near Slough Creek

Yellowstone as with most of our national parks is one of those places where you can find scenes and wildlife to photograph and experience everywhere you go. Hoping that you get to have the experience of visiting a national park.


   

Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

   

Appreciating Scale

10th September 2022

We’re Mere Specks on Earth

I grew up in the New York metropolitan area and didn’t get to travel to the more remote areas of our country until later in life. To me, the skyscrapers of New York City were about the tallest or largest scenery to which I was accustomed. That changed after college when I visited my first national park – Yosemite. Since then, I’ve made been lucky enough to visit many more.

One thing that I encountered early on and continues to amaze me to this day is the extensive amount of our country’s tracts of land. Look as far as your eye can see and there’s plenty more beyond. From a distance, gaze at a geologic feature or land mass and you may not comprehend its size until you draw closer. In short, it’s the scale of these features that are astonishing.

As individuals, our size is insignificant compared to the earth’s magnificent landforms.

Below are a few photographs that try to illustrate scale.




A couple hiking at Death Valley’s Mesquite Dunes look miniscule.
You can barely see the dozens of visitors congregating around Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

Here’s a visitor enjoying the shade of Delicate Arch.
This is the same photograph at full size. You can see how the size of Delicate Arch towers over the visitor.

These craggy mountains in the northeast portion of Yellowstone National Park are home to mountain goat families.
We’ve enlarged the photo on the left so you can pick out the animal on the ledge high off of the surrounding terrain.


This young girl is having fun exploring the rocks in Monument Valley.

In the full size photo you can see her standing in front of a huge monument.


This young girl sits at the entrance to the Tunnel Tree in Yosemite.

My fisheye lens captures the entirety of the Tunnel Tree which rises 225 feet above the ground.


The scale of many of nature’s wonders is so humbling to me and affords me the chance to record them on film (so to speak).

Written by:
 
Arnie Lee
 
 

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