MONTANA / WYOMING BORDER

Mid-March 2020 BACKCOUNTRY ADVENTURE

As usual, the start of the year was moving fast for me. I had been traveling to several customer accounts and realized by the end of February; my typical mid-April trip was not going to happen due to a scheduled customer production deployment. My internal compass was telling me I need to recharge my connection with Nature. I quickly decided to plan a ten-day trip back out to Montana (all before corvid-19 exploded). The day I left, there were no Corvid-19 cases in Michigan, but by the time I reached my designation, news came out, two cases were confirmed.

If you have read my other adventures, a common theme may come very apparent; I love snow!! This trip didn't let me down as I experienced the following:

Significant winter storm while in the high country
Snowshoeing in pristine snow-covered off-trail areas
Experiencing a large Grizzly coming out of hibernation
Oh, one sad aspect, the slaughter of Bison entering Montana :(
My most significant OMG moment, which I didn't realize till I got back home and saw the photograph on my large iMac screen.

Overall, it was a fantastic adventure. So many exceptional moments that allowed me to reconnect with Nature. In a big way, I was living in a bubble away from all the Corvid-19 noise until I started my trip back home. For a complete summary of my experiences, please continue reading below.

HERE SOME OF THE MANY SPECIAL MOMENTS I CAPTUREd ON THIS ADVENTURE

Just in case you are wondering, I'm an introvert who loves the solitude of being totally on my own. I'm a free spirit who loves to explore using my internal compass to guide me as I go. Having the ability to go snowshoeing on this trip really allowed me to enjoy those solitude moments with nature.

When I look back at this trip, I realized it brought a satisfied closure to the winter 2019/2020 for me. Coming out here back at the end of October beginning of November where I experienced a few small snow storms with temperatures reaching 23 deg’s below to experiencing all the snowy / cold weather from this trip brought a satisfying closure to this winters season!!!

The photographs of myself taken with my Nikon D850 on a small tripod using an 8-second timer or my iPhone. All the Wildlife photos were taken with my Nikon D5 Nikkor 600mm f/4 or using a 1.7x / 1.4x teleconverter.

How I started out my day

Every day I was up at 4:00 AM so I could be out the door by 5:00 AM. The day of the snowstorm I made sure to be out by 4:30 AM. Below are photos capturing my trip out, how heavy the snow was falling during the day and reason the road was closed for 4 hours once the storm cleared up late in the afternoon.

THE Day of the SNOWSTORM I was out 4:30 AM

This photo shows how much snow was already piling up over the second pass as I was heading out.

Here is where I spent most of the day as at times the snow was so heavy you couldn’t even see the river. I was really anticipating to see if the River Otter would come out but never saw any signs till the next day.

After the snowstorm this narrow pass was closed for 4 hrs while the snowplow could remove all the snow.Normally as I headed out every morning I would always be very cautious as there would be some rocks or boulders that would roll out onto the road … — After the snowstorm this narrow pass was closed for 4 hrs while the snowplow could remove all the snow.
Normally as I headed out every morning I would always be very cautious as there would be some rocks or boulders that would roll out onto the road through here.

Amazing WILDLIFE Experiences

Here is an overview of many great moments I was able to capture during this trip.

This Bighorn Ram was feeding on a steep sunlit slope when he came around the pine tree with a mouth full of grass.

Caught this Coyote hunting and was able to capture this great angle.

Snowshoeing back down the mountain I spotted this Fox coming up this ravine. I was lucky to capture this brief moment as the Fox took a moment to look at me and I was ready for it.

On another day snowshoeing in the same area as the other two Fox photos I caught this one (maybe the same one) hunting.

Here is an example of “Expect The Unexpected”. As I was snowshoeing during a moderate snow shower I notice this Fox coming over a log not more than 25 ft from me. Because of the moderate snow I had a cover over my Nikkor 600mm lens. I couldn’t get i… — Here is an example of **“Expect The Unexpected”**. As I was snowshoeing during a moderate snow shower I notice this Fox coming over a log not more than 25 ft from me. Because of the moderate snow I had a cover over my Nikkor 600mm lens. I couldn’t get it off in time to get a great shot. Once I got the lens cover off I just had to take this photo as she walked away of me.

I hiked down to this canyon river and as I was sitting on the edge (see the snowy pic of the river up above to where I was) waiting for the River Otter to come out but a flock of ducks landed in front of me. Here is a male Common Goldeneye with it’s… — I hiked down to this canyon river and as I was sitting on the edge (see the snowy pic of the river up above to where I was) waiting for the River Otter to come out but a flock of ducks landed in front of me. Here is a male Common Goldeneye with it’s mate as she resurfaces from an opening in the icy river. Oh, I never did see the River Otter but I did see his fresh tracks after it snowed several different days. :(

Grizzly who just came out of hibernation found this young Bison who fell through the ice. You can see the tremendous strength it has bulling the Bison to the edge of the pond.

Early in the day of the snowstorm I spotted this Bull Bison bedded down as the heavy snow starts to fully cover him.

Couldn’t help from taking this picture of a row of trees on a very frozen foggy morning.

I love this picture due to the angle of the sun exposing all the topological features of this wide open snow swept meadow.

Looking NW at Soda Butte Creek with Barronette Peak in the background.

I LOVE SHOWSHOEING

I was lucky to have a local friend who let me borrow his snowshoes. This made my exploring adventures even more fun as I was able to snowshoe 4 different days. There were other days where I went out where the snow was so hard I could walk on it without braking through (most of the time). :)

I’ve posted a 3 part video of a my snowshoeing experience one afternoon. Here are links to each of those videos:

Part# 1 Part# 2 Part# 3

Here is the view I had in the above pic!!!

MY OMG MOMENT WHILE BACK AT HOME REVIEWING THIS PHOTOGRAPH

One of great things about being out here was the moon had just reached 100% the day before I arrived. With clear skies and the moon around 87% full my goal was to be out in the field by 5:00 AM (2 1/2 hrs before sunrise) taking advantage of the snow covered mountains. The goal was to try and photograph the moonlit mountains and the night sky. I don’t get the chance to be in this situation very often and I took full advantage of the moment to practice with different settings. I took this photo with my Nikon D850 (ISO 320 20mm f/1.8 @ 6.0 sec).

Normally I’m very aware of my surroundings but in this case I clearly was not as this Grey Wolf was watching me!!! I was lucky the Wolf stood still long enough to capture enough detail to make out what it was (see the image below). Now think about this, I’m using a 20mm lens, the angle of view is very big. Went to Google Maps to measure the distance and it came out to be about 80 ft (26.6 yards). Even as I write this I’m still amazed. I had this lone Grey Wolf watching me and I had no idea it was there. FYI, I took many photos and I do have one other I took right after this showing a very blurry Wolf just as it exits the left edge of the photo.

Just Amazing discovery!!!

My focus was so much on playing with my settings I never saw the Grey Wolf in the lower left side of the photo.

I’ve cropped down the photo for you to get a better image of the wolf. Some may think it’s a Coyote but I’ve really analyzed it to make sure it wasn’t. You can tell by the pointy ears and by the colors of the winter coat.

BISON ENTERING MONTANA FACE SLAUGHTER

For me, Bison are majestic animals. What is very disturbing to me is, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks is allowing the slaughter 800-900 Bison this year. Montana ranchers have put so much political pressure on the State of Montana preventing any Bison from entering the state. See the story HERE.

A beautiful bull Bison leads his herd on a natural migration from higher Yellowstone elevations to lower elevations north of Gardiner, MT basin as they find better grazing meadows.

EXPLORING NEW AREA’S TO EXPLORE LATER THIS YEAR

On my last day I decided to head south out of Big Timber, MT into the mountains to scout out new areas to explore later this year. As I traveled further into the higher elevations the snow was getting heavier and eventually ended up in the cloud layer with no visibility and had to turn around.