Yellowstone National Park - New Year

Joshua Rutledge January 11, 2026

As we enter a new year, I am in the old familiar situation of being behind on my blog again. The summer and fall months are so busy, I don’t take the time to post things. And then as winter settles in and things slow down, I finally have a chance to reflect. Overall I had a pretty good summer and fall seasons. I had trips to the Oregon coast, Glacier National Park, senior portrait sessions, the elk rut and a lot of smaller outings closer to home. I did have a bit of a health setback late in the summer/early fall that did slow me down for a while though. Photography wise, I was blessed this year with having several photos published in various publications, sold some prints and had multiple inquiries into leading tours and what not. I will post a few highlights for now, but I may do full length posts later from these trips depending on how the winter goes. If you are interested in more information about any of these, let me know.

You can select individual photos for a larger view.

I just returned from a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park with my wife, which is what kind of inspired me to get caught up again. I enjoy visiting Yellowstone in the winter, with the smaller crowds and slower pace it’s just a lot more fun. This winter has been a little strange with the warm temperatures and the lack of snow, but we still found plenty of wildlife in the park. We stayed two nights in Gardiner, MT that gave us plenty of time to get out and see what we wanted to see. The road between Gardiner and Cooke City remains open all winter, so you can visit this area (which includes the Lamar Valley) in your own personal vehicle. There are snow coaches that access other areas of the park, which are great choices too, but for this trip we decided to just access what we could on our own. We ended up staying at The Ridgeline Hotel, and with it being the off season we actually got a pretty good rate. The hotel had a pool, a hot tub and a couple of outdoor, but covered, seating areas that included an open fire. There was a restaurant (Yellowstone Mine and Rusty Rail Lounge) adjacent to the hotel as well, which was really convenient and we really enjoyed our meal there. We also ate at the Cowboy’s Lodge and Grill that was pretty good too.

Snowy scene of the terraces at Mammoth Hot Srings — The terraces at Mammoth Hot Spring in Yellowstone National Park.

On your way from Gardiner into the valley, of course you have to stop at Mammoth Hot Springs and look around. The hotel there is open in the winter, but it is more expensive and has more limited availability as compared to staying outside of the park. The dining room and the General Store were open as well, but many of the other shops were closed for the season. The visitor center was open though, and that is always worth a stop.

Please select individual image for full size viewing.

We had a pretty successful trip finding wildlife in the park. We found bison, coyotes, fox, wolves, pronghorn, elk, moose, deer, many bird species and other wildlife as well. Our favorite encounter may have been with a red fox.

Select individual images for full view.

Another favorite encounter was with two bull moose. One was a large mature bull moose and the other was a smaller younger bull. We saw an additional moose farther down the valley in the willows, but it never came out for any good photographs.

Select individual images for full view.

We saw a lot of coyotes on this trip. Our first encounter was with three on a dead bison. I am honestly not sure if this was a wolf kill, or from other causes. I am aware there was a bison hit on the road a couple of days before we got there, and the park had moved it off the road to not be a safety hazard, but I don’t know if that was this one or not. We also did see coyotes near a confirmed wolf kill of an elk on the far end of Lamar Valley. And we saw a few other coyotes along the way as well. I did not actually get a lot of good coyote photographs this trip, they were just not being very cooperative.

Select individual image for full view.

As I mentioned, we did find a wolf elk kill at the far end of the valley. We actually stopped in the morning, but there were no wolves at the kill site. We could hear them howling up in the hills behind the kill, which was haunting, but they were difficult to see. We left to find other opportunities, but came back later in the afternoon. When we came back there were 4 black wolves feeding, so that was awesome. They were pretty far away, so even with my big 600mm lens and a 1.4x teleconvetrer they were still pretty small in the frame. But I thought I would still share what I was able to capture.

Select individual image for full view.

And of course you cannot go to Yellowstone without seeing bison everywhere. I think because they are so prevalent, I never end up taking a lot of photos of them, but I probably should. We saw this one early in the morning while it was still kind of the blue hour in the snow, so I thought I would snap a photo. He was also slightly above me, and I liked how the angle was kind of exaggerating his hump.

Bison bull in hte snow. — A bison bull in the snow.

All in all we had a great trip. The only large animal we didn’t see, that I thought we would, was bighorn sheep. We were never able to find any. I saw images from other photographers before and after we were there, but for some reason we missed them. I am still hoping to someday spot an otter in the park, but so far they have eluded me.

For this trip, almost all of the image were taken with my Canon R5 II, with the Canon EF 600mm F4 version 2 lens. A few others were taken with my original Canon R5 with either the RF 100-500 L lens or the RF 24-105 L F4 lens. If you want anymore information about visiting Yellowstone in the winter, please reach out and let me know. Or you can also check out my blog post from a visit to Yellowstone in the winter of 2024 you can find here.

A flock of snow geese taking off over Freezeout Lake just before sunrise.

Spring in Montana

Joshua Rutledge April 23, 2025

I thought I better catch up on my blog and my spring adventures so far. I had a pretty quiet winter as far as photography goes, so I am happy spring is finally here! I was hoping to maybe fit in a trip to Yellowstone National Park this winter, but that never materialized. There were a few Northern Lights events and some astronomical alignments that I probably should have made more of an effort to capture this winter, but I think I was in a bit of a slump and just couldn’t find the motivation. I think that happens to most photographers from time to time.

As spring approaches, I tend to have my annual events that I always look forward to. These include the migration of snow geese (and other waterfowl) at Freezout Lake, sharp-tailed grouse on the lek and greater sage-grouse on the lek. If I am lucky I might find some owls or other subjects to include as well. This spring was no different.

A flock of snow geese flying in formation above Freezeout Lake.

The spring migration at Freezout Lake was a little off this year. The snow geese numbers stayed pretty low during the time of their normal build up, which usually peaks around the third week in March. The consensus seems to be that with a mild spring, the geese may have just kept heading north instead of holding over around Freezout Lake. There was a large spike in snow geese numbers for just a day or so, but that was about a week after the normal peak numbers. Unfortunately I had visited Freezout during what is usually the best time, and I did not get to see this surge. The swan numbers were also way down this year. In fact, there never was a large spike in swan numbers at all this season. I only came away with a handful of swan photos this spring. I still had a good time on my trip out there though. If you want to read my blog post from a previous year with more detailed information about visiting Freezeout Lake, you can check it out here.

Sunrise over one of the sloughs at Freezout Lake.

The first week of April I had the chance to visit one of my favorite sharp-tailed grouse leks at Benton Lake NWR which is just north of where I live in Great Falls. This particular morning was not the best for photography, as it was a very overcast sky with a chance of rain. The rain never materialized, but the clouds remained for most of the morning. There were a couple of very short windows when the sun would try to poke through. The lek was a little farther away from the blind this year than normal, so combined with the cloudy conditions, I did not walk away with any great images this year. But it is always a great time just watching and listening to the grouse out on the lek anyway.

A male sharp-tailed grouse displaying on a lek.

Close up of a male sharp-tailed grouse on the lek. You can see some of the color you don’t normally get to see.

This last weekend, April 18th, 2025, I had the chance to visit one of my favorite greater sage-grouse leks in Central Montana. It was a chilly morning, I think the temperatures were only about 25 degrees F and there was a dusting of fresh snow on the ground. Similar to the sharp-tailed grouse, the lek was a little further away from me than past years, but I did get some better light. I left with a few ok images, but again, nothing great. It was still a great morning out though. While in the area, I also spent some time in the Missouri Breaks and I captured a few images of some mountain bluebirds working on their nest, as well as another sharp-tailed grouse lek I was not aware of before. I only had my smaller Canon RF 100-500 with me while I was in the Breaks, so I might have to visit again sometime and bring my big 600 F4.

A male greater sage-grouse displaying on a lek.

As spring gets busier, it gets harder to get out. I would love to get out and try to find some ruffed grouse displaying, but I don’t know if I will or not. I put that on my list every spring as something I need to do, but I never seem to make it happen. Maybe this year!

This mother polar bear and her two cubs on the beach of Hudson Bay were trying to sneak behind this male polar bear that is out of focus on the left of the frame. Female polar bears with cubs try to avoid male bears. There were two additional bears out of frame, so for a couple of minutes there were 6 bears around us.

Churchill - Polar Bear Capital of the World

Joshua Rutledge November 25, 2024

My sister Melissa and I recently returned from an amazing trip to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada to photograph polar bears. Churchill is located on Hudson Bay, and it is an area where polar bears congregate every fall while they wait for the bay to freeze over so they can go out on the ice to hunt for seals. The reason the bay starts to freeze there first is actually because of the Churchill River that empties into the bay. The fresh water in the river freezes much earlier than the salt water, so the ice from the river collects in the bay and that helps the bay freeze over faster than it would otherwise. Typically the end of October or early November is considered the prime time to view the polar bears, so we scheduled our trip accordingly. Once the bay freezes over, the polar bears disperse and are no longer in the area, so you do need to be there before ice over. The exact timing of the freeze varies from year to year and is trending towards later in the season. You can find polar bears around Churchill earlier in the fall however, but maybe just not in as high of concentrations. Pregnant females will also hibernate in the area, especially in the nearby Wapusk National Park. The local guides we talked to said the bears seem to be showing up earlier and earlier however, and it is not uncommon to see them even in July now. Churchill is also known for its summer concentration of beluga’s whales and the Northern Lights. So if you time it right, in maybe late August or so, they said you might be able to get the trifecta and see polar bears, belugas and the Northern Lights all in one visit! Speaking of the Northern Lights, we had cloudy/snowy conditions most of the time while we were there, so we never did get to see them. We did see them on our trip home while on the train however. They consider their “Northern Lights season” to be later in the winter or even early spring when the skies tend to be less cloudy. You have the chance to see them there almost 300 nights out of the year though. We have been lucky the last couple of years here in Montana that we have had some spectacular Northern Lights shows, so we were not quite as disappointed that we did not get to see them. If you are interested, I do have a couple of blog posts from our events here.

Northern Lights - March 2023

Northern Lights -April 2023

We started planning this trip almost a year ago. I really should say my sister Melissa started planning this trip. She was a rock star and made almost all of the arrangements, so I owe her a big thank you for that. We (my wife, my sister and I) visited Katmai National Park in the fall of 2023, and I think that might have served as an inspiration for this trip. I think having photographed the brown bears in Alaska, the polar bears kind of felt like the next natural step. We were already aware of Churchill at that point, and it seemed like the most accessible option to see the bears. The other popular option is Svalbard in northern Norway. I do have a blog from Katmai National Park as well if you want to check it out.

As soon as we started researching the trip, we discovered that much like Katmai National Park, you cannot drive to Churchill. You have to either fly in or take the train. The most common jumping off point for either option is via Winnipeg, Manitoba. If you decide you want to take the train, there are other options as well, which is what we chose to do. We decided we would drive to Thompson, Manitoba and get on the train there. The drive to Thompson is actually farther than driving to Winnipeg for us, but the train ride would have been a lot longer, so we decided to save time by driving ourselves. Obviously the fastest option would have been by plane out of Winnipeg, but that was a fairly pricey option. We also had concerns about trying to get that much gear on the plane, since besides all of our camera gear, we knew we would have a lot of bulky cold weather gear as well. Plus the train just sounded like a bit of an adventure in itself. Once we checked the train schedule, knowing we wanted to be there around the end of October or early November, that helped us pick our dates and we were able to reserve a hotel room and book some tours in Churchill. I would recommend booking those things as soon as you know you are going, as they fill up fast.

We started our trip from my sister’s house in Lewistown, MT. I drove over the night before from Great Falls, so we could get an early start. According to the mapping app we used, it was going to be a little over 16 hours of driving time to get from her house up to Thompson. We knew with the shorter fall days we would need to break up the drive over a couple of days. We decided to aim for the small town of Nipawin in Saskatchewan as our first stop. We booked a hotel in town so we would be sure to have a room when we got there. By the time we got through the border and made a few stops, it was probably about a 12 hour day. Speaking of the border, we crossed at the Morgan/Monchy Port north of Malta, Montana. It is a very small crossing, so you may want to check ahead to be sure it will be open when you want to make the crossing. We noticed it was only open from 9 to 5 on weekdays, so we were lucky we were going on a Thursday and we got there after 9am. The crossing was very easy, they just asked a few questions and checked our passports, and we were on our way. We then continued north eventually going through Saskatoon and then east over to Nipawin, arriving there shortly after dark. We stayed at the River Inn Hotel and there was a little chicken joint called Chicken Delight downstairs that we decided to have dinner at. It worked out pretty well staying there. It was Halloween, so there were a few people around trick or treating, but it was still pretty quiet.

I love Tim Hortons, I wish we had them down here.

The next morning we got up early and started on the second leg of our journey to Thompson. Of course we had to stop at Tim Hortons to get some coffee and a donut. When in Canada! Not far out of Nipawin the road turned into gravel. This was obviously not ideal and was probably something we should have looked into a little closer. We did not have any issues, and as gravel roads go, it was a pretty well maintained road, but it was still not the best idea. The road traveled through a kind of a conservation area, so there were a lot of trees and wetlands that were interesting to drive through, but not a lot else. Eventually it did turn back into pavement as we got closer to crossing into Manitoba and eventually to The Pas. After a couple of other stops along the way, we arrived in Thompson in the early afternoon. The train was scheduled to leave around 5PM, so we had plenty of time to grab some dinner and get settled in at the train station. We took a chance and decided to leave our car parked at the train station. This is probably not your best option however, as even the train station recommends against it. The train station is a ways out of town and is kind of in an industrial area with no one really monitoring things. We were told there are some options for places where you can park your car in town that are more secure for a small fee or donation. We heard that maybe the fire department would let you park there, maybe the police station, and we also heard from some fellow travelers that one of the hotels in town would let you as well. You can then either take a taxi or a shuttle service out to the train station. We did not have any issues parking there, but as I said, if we did it again we would have probably found some better options just to be safe.

We boarded the train shortly before 5PM. The train station there is small, and the boarding process was fairly informal and in my opinion a little chaotic. I don’t know if that is typical or not, but that was our experience. The train was pretty full, I would say maybe a little over half appeared to be fellow tourists to Churchill and the other half were locals that use the train to get between some of the smaller villages along the way. Since it was going to be an overnight trip, we decided to pay more and we got a sleeper car. I don’t know that this was necessary, but the extra privacy was nice. If you are looking to save some money there are cheaper options (even some that include a bed.) The “room” is pretty small, especially once the beds are pulled out, but it was adequate. This line is very stripped down service wise however, so don’t expect served meals or some of the amenities you would normally get taking the train elsewhere. There were some snacks available and you could buy some “hot food”, but it was just prepackaged items that were microwaved for you. Since we had already eaten an early dinner before we got on the train and had brought some snacks with us, we were fine. The train did include a domed car that was nice for some places where you could stretch out a little bit and see some of the scenery. Of course, the train left late enough in the day, that this time of year it was dark within an hour or so of us leaving the station, so there was not a lot to see. If you were traveling by train in the summer when the days are longer, I could see this being more of a highlight. My sister did get up on our return trip to go into the dome, and she was able to see the Northern Lights!

The front of the Churchill Train Station. It is a fairly historic building and has been restored and updated.

Early the next morning we arrived in Churchill. The train was scheduled to arrive around 9AM, but we arrived before 8AM. They have been making improvements to the line, and they said their goal is to try and start having the times reduced by quite a bit. In fact, they pushed our departure time back by an hour on our way home and left the arrival time the same, assuming we would make up an hour in travel time. But they obviously still have some work to do, as we ended up being almost exactly an hour late coming back. The train to Churchill does have a bit of a history and it can be a difficult route to keep intact because of the muskeg that is always thawing and freezing causing the land (tracks) to heave and sink. The line was actually shut down all together for a few years because the train operators said it wasn’t worth the efforts, but the Province of Manitoba agreed to take over maintenance of the line and VIA contracts to run the trains for them. I think that may play into why the services offered on this line are reduced as well. If you are planning on taking the train, I would make sure you check in regularly to make sure the schedules doesn’t change, as it seems to be a bit of a moving target right now.

A sign inside the train station talking about the history of the station a bit.

Once we departed the train and got our checked baggage, we hung out in the station for a bit of time waiting for our shuttle service to the hotel. There is actually a nice little visitors center inside of the train station, and they have someone from the park service that will provide you with information from right in the train station. They also had some maps of the area that were helpful. We eventually found out that our ride was actually there the whole time, but we didn’t realize it. The hotel we were staying at, the owners actually have a couple of different hotels in town, so the name on the shuttle was not what we were looking for. Churchill is a small place, so we found that almost everyone knew everyone, and oftentimes there was kind of cross pollination between things. For example, as I mentioned, the same people owned multiple hotels, and the son of the owner was actually the shuttle driver for us and he owned a restaurant in town, amongst other duties. And his wife was one of our guides later in our visit, and she also worked for other entities in town as well. The hotel owners also own the car rental service in town. Everyone we met was very nice, but there was a fairly casual and informal way about things.

After we got the shuttle situation figured out, he gave us a quick tour of town to give us the lay of the land and where things were at. He then dropped us off at our hotel. We stayed at the Bear Country Inn. The owner is named John and he was a bit of a character. I actually liked him, but I don’t think my sister cared for him as much. I don’t think she quite got his humor, and that is ok. Check-in time was not until 3PM, but he was very nice and found us a room right away that morning so we could put our stuff away. If not, they do have an area behind the desk where they will let you keep your stuff. We did take advantage of that on our departure day since our train was not leaving until later that evening. The hotel is just a basic hotel, they do offer a basic breakfast, it’s nothing fancy, but it was more than adequate. Obviously we were there to experience things, so we didn’t spend that much time in the hotel anyway.

Since we were not sure how our first morning would go, if the train would be on time, and etc, we had purposely not booked anything for our first day there. I think that was actually a good choice. That gave us basically a whole day to wander around town and look at things that we might not have got a chance to otherwise. The main area of town is very small, so you can easily walk the whole thing. There are a lot of murals painted on buildings around town that are fun to find. There are a few gift shops in town, as well as a grocery store, a hardware store and a few other things like that. A lot of the gift shops are part of the tour companies and/or hotels/restaurants. There are also a lot of cool little displays in town that make for good photo ops. There are statues, rock formations, informational signs, there is an old boat closer to the bay, and lots of little things to check out.There are also a couple of museums and informational centers in town that are worth checking out, including the Itsanitaq Museum and the Polar Bears International. Farther out of town there is also the Churchill Northern Studies Center. You do need to always be aware of your surroundings when you are exploring in Churchill, even in town. The polar bears do come into town, and obviously this could be a dangerous situation. There are signs pretty much everywhere warning you to be careful and telling you not to go to certain areas.

You can select the individual photographs from the gallery below for a larger view.

Polar bear at the train station.

Polar Bears International Interpretive Center.

Itsanitaq Museum Sign

Walrus in the museum.

Wolf in the museum.

Polar bear in the museum

Ptarmigan in the museum.

Arctice fox in the museum.

Sign for the Itsanitaq museum.

On the subject of restaurants, one thing we did find out after we got there, is that it can be very difficult to get a dinner reservation in town. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the bigger tour groups book the restaurants so they can provide meals for their clients. If you were willing to eat later or share a table with other guests, sometimes you could get a reservation. Finding breakfast or lunch was not difficult however, since most people were out in the field during those times. The food we did have was all very good. And the prices, while higher than other places, were actually not as bad as I thought they might be, especially when figuring in the favorable exchange rate. We ate at the Tundra Pub our first night, and it was good. They did have a couple of large groups in, but luckily we got there early enough that they did have a couple of tables still available. We ate dinner, lunch, and I think even a breakfast at the Seaport Hotel. All of our meals there were good as well. We had hoped to eat at the Ptarmigan, which is one of the newer/nicer restaurants in town, but we were never able to get a reservation. We also never got over to the Dancing Bear, which I think is a little more casual and also offers pizzas. One evening we ended up eating at a food truck that was serving Asian inspired food. Two of our tours had lunch included, and as I mentioned the hotel offered a basic breakfast, so it was really only dinner we had to worry about.

A breakfast scramble from the Seaport Hotel breakfast.

Elk meat loaf and putine from the Tundray Pub.

Seafood pasta and beef and veg soup from Searport Hotel.

Poutine and a steak sandwich from Seaport Hotel.

That is probably enough about Churchill the town for now, as I am sure most of you are here for the polar bears. If you are going to be visiting Churchill, I would encourage you to do a little research about the town however and see what all it has to offer that you might be interested in, and make sure you leave yourself a little bit of time to explore those things. If you have any questions I can help with, feel free to contact me on my contact page.

You can select the individual photographs for a larger view in the gallery below.

Polar bear mural.

Another polar bear mural.

Rock statue right on Hudson Bay.

Quircky weather sign.

Shipwreck of the MV Ithaca.

Wolf mural.

Informational sign about the whales around Churchill.

Another sign about other wildlife around Churchill.

Polar bear and wolf mural.

Signs warning visitors to not enter certain areas.

The Ptarmigan boat display.

Another mural in town.

Bear crossing sign.

Polar bear print in the snow.

This mother polar bear and her two older cubs were resting out in a flat near Hudson Bay.

Our first full morning we had a tour scheduled with Nanuk Operations. We joined a group of 4 that had already been in Churchill for a couple of days and our guide was named Jaime. He picked us up at our hotel and off we went. We were actually awoken early in our hotel room that morning from some poppers going off. These were conservation officers trying to haze a bear out of town. They use loud noises and other methods to try and deter the bears from coming into town. Since our guide knew a bear had been hazed out of town earlier, he first took us out to where he thought it might have been heading. This took us by the old grain port on the outside of town near where the Churchill River meets Hudson Bay. We did not actually find any bears out there, but I am glad we went, as it was the only time during our trip we made it out to that area of town. We then made our way back through town and only made it a short distance and we spotted our first bear. It was near the cemetery and was just walking across this open area between us and the only major road heading out of town. Since it was so close to town, eventually some conservation officers showed up and chased it away from town towards the river. It was still fairly early in the morning at this point, and it was a bit overcast, so from a photography perspective it was not the greatest, but it was still awesome to have our first sighting.

Our first polar bear sighting of the trip.

Polar bear passing in front of us. — Our first polar bear passing in front of us.

We then headed out to “Polar Bear Alley” which is kind of the area down by the beach on Hudson Bay. There are a lot of rocks, brush and other areas where the bears like to hang out, and it forms a kind of natural corridor for them to travel, so that is why they call it Polar Bear Alley. Our first sighting in Polar Bear Alley was a mother with two cubs a ways out in a clearing. It was then I realized that I had forgotten my teleconverter at the hotel that day. I was wishing I would have had it to bring them in a little closer. They were still fun to watch, but a little bit too far away for any great photos. It wasn’t too much later that we spotted a bear walking down the beach. It was low tide, so they like to walk the tidal zone to see if there is anything washed up to eat. Our guide was able to anticipate where he thought the bear was going to go, and got us into a great position for photography. I really appreciated this about Jaime, as he did understand the photography aspect of the tour. Some of our other guides, while great in their own way, did not necessarily understand the photography side of things as much.

Mother polar bear with two older cubs again.

You can select the individual photos from the gallery below for a larger view.

Polar bear on the beach enjoying the sun

Closer up of the polar bear on the beach.

Polar bear with Hudson Bay behind it.

Polar bear walking along Hudson Bay.

Portrait of a polar bear.

Polar bear on beach.

Wider environmental shot of a polar bear in the low tide.

Eventually we headed out to the Churchill Northern Studies Center (technically it’s “Centre” since it’s Canada) for lunch. The Center is a research facility and hosts a lot of projects and programs there. We made use of their cafeteria for lunch and also made a quick stop in the gift shop there. The Center is quite a ways out of town, and is near where there used to be a rocket testing facility. Some of the old buildings from the rocket testing days are still visible.

After lunch we headed out to the Churchill Wildlife Management Area. This area sits adjacent to the Wapusk National Park and is kind of behind the Study Center. This is also the area where the “tundra buggies” operate. I will get into those more later on. If you have a permit you are allowed to go on the established roads, but only the buggies are allowed to go to areas off road. We saw several bears in the distance coming into the management area, and eventually we found a bear relatively close near a rock formation. We watched it for quite a while and then we eventually saw a mother bear with two cubs coming across the ice in our general direction. We decided to stay in the area to see how close she would get. While we were watching her, we saw a red fox running out on the ice as well. We saw several red fox during our visit, but we never got any great photos of one. And we never saw any silver fox (a blackish color morph of a red fox) or arctic fox, which were on our wish lists of things to see. Our guides said the arctic fox has had a bit of a die off and they don’t see them as often anymore. The red foxes seem to be out-competing them there. Anyway, eventually the polar bear with the two cubs did come all the way across the ice, and after disappearing into the willows for a little while, they emerged pretty close in front of us. We were able to get a few pretty good pictures, before they proceeded to walk in front of us towards the rocks where we had seen the other bear earlier. As we were heading back out of the management area, we had a couple of other encounters with bears. We had one large bear up on the rocks that made for some great pictures. And we had one very curious bear that ended up getting way too close to us, and we had to retreat back into the van. Our guide made a lot of noise and was eventually able to get the bear to move along. It did make for a pretty exciting encounter.

Select the individual photos from the gallery below for a larger view.

Polar bear in front of some dark rocks.

Polar bear approaching us.

Polar bear with tongue out.

Polar bear portrait.

Mother polar bear and two cubs crossing the ice.

Red fox out on the ice.

Mother polar bear and two cubs on the beach behind the willows.

Mother polar bear and two cubs posing for me.

Mother polar bear with two cubs.

Close up mother polar bear with cub.

An armed guide making sure everyone was save the mother polar bear and two cubs crossed in front of us.

Large polar bear up on the rocks.

Polar bear sitting on rocks.

Polar bear resting on the rocks.

All in all we had a great first day out and about. I believe we ended up seeing about a dozen bears total. We both really enjoyed our guide and had kind of wished we had booked more than one day with him. Nanuk Operations were top notch and very professional. Prior to our tour they were great with keeping in touch and making sure everything was good to go. I wish I had a link to Jaime’s social media or something so I could tag him.

We had a full 8 or 9 hour day out on the tour, so it was getting dark by the time we got back to town. I believe this was the night we had dinner at the Seaport Hotel. Our first night we had dinner at the Tundra Pub. Both meals were great. We then settled into the hotel, recharged our camera batteries and got ready for the next day.

Our second day of touring we had a tour scheduled with Great White Bear Tours. This is one of the companies that operate tundra buggies out on the Wildlife Management Area I referenced earlier. I do need to clarify that “Tundra Buggy” is a trademarked name. I believe Frontiers North owns that name. So Great White Bear calls theirs “Polar Rovers.” There is a third company permitted to operate in the Management Area, but I cannot remember what they call theirs now. The term “tundra buggy” is kind of like using Kleenex though, everyone just calls them all tundra buggies regardless of what company is operating them. The buggies are mostly all based off a fire truck chassis they build up for the vehicles.

A plaque on the back of the seats of the Polar Rover.

Great White Bear picked us up at our hotel, and after picking up several other guests around town, we headed out to their facility near the Management Area. They have built a ramp out at their facility that rovers can back up to, so you are able to walk off the shuttle and directly onto the rover without having to climb up and in. The rovers sit high up in the air, so this is a nice setup. I think the other companies have you climb up onto a loading dock to get onto the buggy. The Great White Bear rovers do have a private flushing toilet on board, so that is nice. They said that was a fairly new feature of their rovers, so they are not sure if the other companies have something similar now too or not.

Great White Bear Tours facility. — Looking back at the Great White Bear Tours facility as we are pulling away.

We pulled away from the loading area and headed out into the Management Area. The rovers are built to go over ice, rocks, mud and etc, so they move pretty slow and the ride can be a little rough. Since they sit up so high, they do tend to rock back and forth a lot too. I mention this, because if you are prone to motion sickness, this might be something to be aware of. We did not have anyone get sick on ours, but there was a passenger on ours that had been out previously and they stated someone did get sick on their other tour.

A polar bear walking in front of another Polar Rover.

We had a great day out on the rover. We had several close up interactions with bears that would come right up the rover. Other bears would kind of keep their distance. Every bear kind of has its own personality. They did serve lunch on the rover, which consisted of beef stew, a dinner roll, cookies and a drink. They also had opportunities to get hot chocolate and coffee. The spot we chose for lunch was good, as the temperatures were just warm enough by the afternoon that some of the ice was melting. This created some pools of water on the ice and as the bears would walk out onto the ice you could see the bear’s reflections in the water. None of my pictures turned out all that great, probably because of the temperature differences between the cold ice and the warm air was creating a mirage, but it was still cool to see. Eventually we headed back to the loading area and we saw a few bears on our way out. I believe we saw around a dozen bears or so again this day.

You can select the individual photos from the gallery below for a larger view.

Large polar bear laying in the grass.

Polar bear with two older cubs.

Polar bear with two cubs.

Polar bear with two cubs passing outside the rover windshield.

Polar bear looking over it's shoulder.

Young polar bear right below me next to the rover.

Polar bear under another rover.

Polar bear and reflection on the ice.

Another polar bear ice reflection.

Seal sitting out on an iceberg in Hudson Bay.

From a purely photography perspective, the tundra buggies are probably not the most conducive to getting the best shots. But you do see the bears in a different way then you would otherwise, so I think it’s still worth spending at least one day touring this way. Once we got back to the loading area, we loaded the shuttle and they took us back to our hotel. We ended up grabbing some dinner at a food truck after again not being able to get a table at a restaurant.

Nearing sunset over the Wildlife Management area at the end of our day on the rover.

Our last day in Churchill we had a tour scheduled with Sub-Arctic Tours. Our train was not scheduled to leave until 7PM that night, so we had plenty of time to fit in one more full day tour. Our guide was a Churchill native named Stanley. He was a really interesting guy who had done a lot of different things during his life. He was in the military and had been on some award winning marksmanship teams. He worked at the large grain port in town as a younger man and had retired from working as a maintenance worker at the large community building in town. He took us around to a lot of little spots around Churchill that we had not seen yet. This included the Polar Bear Holding Facility, known as “Bear Jail” and a crash site of a plane that was overloaded back when the military base was there. So that was great. I guess I should have mentioned that it was a cold blizzardy day. It was the only day that really felt cold, we had been pretty lucky up to that point. Sub-Arctic Tours has a couple of different options for tours, but we chose an option where we were just in a pickup, hoping that would ensure it was just the two of us (and the guide), and that was the case.

Two male polar bears sparring with each other. They were not seriously fighting, they were just kind of pushing each other around.

The blizzard conditions were not ideal for photographing wildlife. I don’t think our guide had quite as good of understanding of photography either. He was great at knowing the local areas and finding wildlife, but he didn’t really understand as well getting us into good situations for getting photographs of the wildlife. I guess we could have been a little more vocal about what we wanted some of the times, so some of it is probably on us. We did eventually come across two male polar bears sparring with each other. So that was probably one of my highlights from the trip. The wind was blowing so hard, and there was so much snow swirling around, that it was very difficult to get any good photos. After a while a lot of other people and tour groups found the location, and it got pretty crowded. We eventually left to see what else we could find, but we determined that it was probably the best show in town. But when we went back, the scene had got even busier, so we were not even able to park anywhere near where the bears were. We saw several foxes that day, but we didn’t get any photos and we did find some ptarmigan out feeding in the storm. I did get some photos of them, but between the wind and the blowing snow none of them turned out great.

You can select the individual photos for a larger view from the gallery below.

Male polar bears sparring.

Polar bear biting another on the rear.

Polar bear spun around after getting bit.

Polar bear resting in the rocks.

Ptarmigan in the storm.

Plane crash near town.

Polar Bear Jail.

New vs old polar bear traps.

Old radar base with mural.

Polar bear sleeping in some rocks. — This polar bear was staying out of the storm by sleeping next to some rocks.

We ended the day out in the Wildlife Management area again. We finally found a bear that was riding out the storm by just sleeping in the rocks. It would occasionally raise its head to look around, but that was about it. Our guide then took us back to our hotel and we just kind of hung out until it was time for a ride back to the train station. John, the hotel owner, gave us a ride back personally, so that was nice. We hung out in the train station for a bit, before starting our journey back home. To avoid the gravel road we ended up on going up, we took a more southerly route out of Thompson. This route took us through Regina and Moose Jaw, but eventually coming back through the same port of entry north of Malta. On the way home we stayed in the town of Swan River. We did not have the best hotel experience there, so I am not including that location in this blog.

Going into this trip I struggled with what to bring. From a photography standpoint, of course I wanted to include everything but the kitchen sink. Since we were not taking a plane, I didn’t feel quite as restrained, but I still had to prioritize what I wanted to bring. I settled on bringing my 2 Canon R5 bodies, the Canon 600mm F4 version II, my Canon RF 100-500, Canon RF 24-105 F4, Canon EF 70-200 2.8 Version III and in case we had Northern Lights I included my Canon RF 15-35 2.8 lens. I did not end up ever using the 70-200 or the 15-35. I also brought my GoPro Hero 10 Black for the wider video shots. Other wide angle shots I just used my iPhone. The real struggle I had was whether to bring a tripod and/or a mono-pod. I ended up bringing both. I really only used my mono-pod though. Getting in and out of vehicles, with other people most of the time, the larger tripod was just not very convenient. Since we did not get the Northern Lights I did not need it for that either. There were situation out in the field where I did wish I had brought the tripod instead of the mono-pod though. I probably used my big Canon 600 F4 lens about as much, if not maybe even a bit more, than my Canon RF 100-500 lens. Even though the bears are big, you still want to keep your distance, so a longer lens is nice for that. I really only used the 24-105 around town when I was photographing things. Most the time out in the field the 100-500 was still wide enough for some environmental shots.

My other struggle with packing was deciding what cold weather gear to bring. As it turned out we had unseasonably warm weather most of the time, so we over packed. I brought my big Baffin arctic boots, but only ended up wearing them one day. And I never needed to put on all of my layers or wear my heavier gloves or hat. The possibility of needing them was there however, so I am glad I was over packed instead of potentially being under prepared.

Overall I was pretty happy with the choices we made, and I don’t think there was much I would change about the trip. If we were to ever go again, knowing what we know now, we would probably do things a little different. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think how we did it the first time wasn’t still the way to go. I feel like by trying three different tours, and leaving ourselves some time to ourselves, it gave us the best chance to see all of the possibilities. Of course having another day or two would have been nice, but the cost, train schedules, work, etc are always limiting factors. I think an ideal trip would have been to have maybe one more day where we could have concentrated on finding other wildlife other than just polar bears though. There were sightings of wolverines, silver foxes, arctic foxes and snowy owls around the time we were there, and it would have been nice to have seen some of those things. Of course the polar bears are the stars, but after 3 days I would have felt ok taking a day looking for something else. The idea of going back in the summer or early fall when we could see beluga whales and potentially polar bears as well does intrigue me. I guess only time well tell if I ever make it back there or not…

If you enjoyed this blog, I would encourage you to watch the video posted below on my YouTube channel. I consider my blog and my YouTube channel to be compliments of each other and they work together to help tell the full story more completely.

Sunset behind the Rocky Mountain Front from west of Augusta, Montana.

July Weekend on the Rocky Mountain Front

Joshua Rutledge August 27, 2024

On the weekend of July 6-7, 2024, my sister Melissa and I decided to spend some time doing more exploring on the Rocky Mountain Front. We decided to base ourselves out of Augusta, Montana. We stayed at the Wagons West Motel. The motel also has a restaurant attached and an RV camping area behind it. It looked like they were doing some improvements on the property and we had a pleasant stay.

The first morning we decided to get up early and do the hike to Muddy Creek falls. This hike has been on my list for years. In fact, I was all ready to make the hike a couple of years ago, but I found out just a few days before I was planning on going that the trail was closed because there was a dead moose on the trail that was attracting bears. The trail remained closed all of that summer.

Muddy Creek Falls is actually closer to Bynam or Choteau than Augusta, but we had some other plans for the weekend that were closer to Augusta, so we decided to stay there. When we got up in the morning, it was actually pretty cool and raining, but the weather report said it was not supposed to last, so we made the drive up to the trailhead. Well, we actually drove up to the Blackleaf Canyon trailhead first by accident. At the time of writing this blog, there are no signs that actually point you to Muddy Creek Falls, so you kind of need to know where you are going. I will try to give detailed instructions to the trailhead later on in this post. It actually worked out OK though, because we got to see something new and by the time we backtracked and figured out where we needed to be, the rain had mostly stopped.

Near the start of the trail to Muddy Creek Falls looking up the canyon. In full disclosure, this was taken after we got back, that is why it looks sunny.

The hike to the falls is about 5 miles round trip. There is minimal elevation gain, but there are stretches of the trail that are rocky and may require navigating some boulders. For some reason during the hike in, we had a difficult time staying on the trail. We often found ourselves just following the creek bed. On the way back out, we had a little easier time following the trail, but there were still areas that were washed out and/or covered in gravel from spring runoffs. Even though it was easy to lose the trail sometimes, you never needed to worry about getting lost or anything. You are pretty well contained in the valley between two mountains and then eventually the steep canyon walls, so there is never really any doubt about where you need to go. It might just be a matter of finding the best/easiest route to take.

In the slot canyon approaching the falls. The black dot in the center of the frame is my sister hiking for some perspective. The falls can be seen as small white strip above her.

The area is known to have grizzly bears, so I would highly recommend hiking with bear spray or some kind of bear deterrent. There are also moose in the area which could become dangerous if they feel cornered or have young with them. We did not see any bears on our hike. We saw moose sign but no moose. We did see a mountain lion about a mile into our hike. It crossed the creek bed maybe 100 yards in front of us. Since it had been raining I did not have my camera out at the time, so unfortunately I did not get any pictures or video of it. On our hike out we found a pika in a rock slide, which is where they typically like to live. I have seen them on several other hikes, but this is the first time I got some relatively close up pictures of one. It was very busy and never sat still for very long though. We also saw a lot of bird species and many wild flowers and berries along the trail. Besides the wildlife and the rocks, I would also make sure you come prepared for the weather. The Rocky Mountain Front can experience fast weather changes without warning, so you should come prepared for all conditions.

You can click on the photos below for a larger view.

Another shot of the pika looking for food to bring back to its den.

Please check out the gallery below for some of the wildflowers we found on our hike.

The history of this area is diverse. Long ago the area where you start the hike would have been part of the Old North Trail. This was a trail the Native Americans used to travel north and south along the rocky mountain front from Canada all the way to Mexico. In more recent history there was oil and gas exploration that happened in this area. In fact, the first part of the trail to the falls actually follows an old road bed from the exploration. There are still some artifacts left from the oil and gas exploration as you go up the canyon. From this area’s most ancient history, there is the opportunity to find fossils as you look through the exposed rocks along the creek bed.

Most of the year the creek bed is dry for the majority of the hike, so don’t panic if you don’t see water and are afraid there will not be any at the falls. The water runs underground, but as you approach where the canyon starts to narrow you will start to see water flowing. We were actually surprised by how much water was in the pool at the base of the falls. I had seen pictures that were taken later in the summer, and there was only a very small pool at the falls. So depending on what time of the summer you go and what the weather conditions have been, you may see more or less water, but the falls does usually run all summer. It is hard to predict exactly when would be the best time to make this hike, but I would probably suggest mid to late June through September. Depending on how much snow fell and how cool or wet the spring/fall is, your mileage may vary. Since you need to access the Blackleaf WMA, you are not allowed to go in any earlier than May 15th or later than December 1st. Typically that time of year there would be too much snow to access the area anyway.

Muddy Creek Falls at the end of the canyon. Notice the hanging rock that sits above the falls.

Once we reached the falls, we stopped and had a snack and hung out by the falls for maybe an hour resting and taking pictures. In that whole time we never saw another person. We were about half way back to the trailhead when we finally passed a group of three people heading up, so it’s not a well used area. As I mentioned, the weather changes fast in the mountains, so even though it was cool and rainy when we started, by the time we got back to the trailhead it was sunny and almost hot.

Check out the gallery below for photos of the falls and an American Dipper that was feeding there.

American Dipper

Melissa Wading in Muddy Creek Falls

Muddy Creek Falls

We had a great time on our hike, and I would highly recommend it as a day hike for anyone that is interested. It is a little bit off the beaten path, but I think that might be part of the appeal for me. If you are interested in visiting other areas along the Rocky Mountain Front, you might consider checking out these other blog posts I made. New Year’s On the Rocky Mountain Front and Our Lake (Hidden Lake).

Check out the gallery of pictures below for some additional shots of the slot canyon. My sister is featured in all of them for some perspective.

I will do my best to try and describe how to get to the trailhead so hopefully you can avoid the mistake we made. There are some cut off roads that come up from the south, off the Teton Canyon Road, that can get you to the right area, but I think it’s most direct if you plan to access the trail through Bynam, Montana. Bynam is about 14 miles north of Choteau or around 40 miles north of Augusta where we were staying. The closest large city would be Great Falls about 65 miles south east or Browning which is about 55 miles north west.

You can reach Bynam on Highway 89. This highway runs from the Canadian border north of Babb, Montana down to around SunRiver (west of Great Falls). I would assume most people would be coming from an eastern or southern direction, but if you are coming from the north (maybe from Glacier National Park?) the directions would be the same once you reach Bynam. Assuming you are coming from the south, you will see the Montana Dinosaur Center and the Trex Agate Shop on your left and you will know you are getting close to your turn. If you are coming from the north and you see them, then you went just a bit too far. There are only a couple of streets in the small town of Bynum, and you want to take Central Avenue. After a couple of blocks, you will see a white school house on your right and the road keeps going straight up over the hill. You want to turn right, in front of the school, which is 3rd Street and keep going north. If you take any of the other roads through town off the highway, they will intersect 3rd Street as well, so you really can’t miss it. Once you get through town heading north, you will see some trees ahead and the road will turn to the left in front of the trees, keep to the left. The road then turns into Blackleaf Road. Keep going on this road for about 14 miles until you see the sign for the Blackleaf WMA. Do not go through this entrance, turn to the left instead. This road is called Knowlton Road or Blackleaf Cutoff Road. Follow this road for a little over a mile, maybe a mile and a quarter, and you will go across a cattle guard, take the right immediately after the cattle guard. If you end up approaching a farm, you went too far. Stay on the road for about a half a mile and then the main road is going to turn to the left and you will see a small less used road that keeps going straight, take that road going straight. After about a quarter of a mile you will see a large gate. Go through this gate, just make sure you close it behind you. Stay on this road for about another 2.5 miles until you reach another gate, this is where you will want to park and start your hike. There is kind of a wide spot with plenty of room for parking. The trailhead is to your right as you are looking at the locked gate. There is a sign there for closure dates, but nothing that says “Muddy Creek Falls” or anything. From the trailhead you will be looking up the Muddy Creek Canyon, so as I said, as long as you keep working your way up that canyon, you really can’t get lost.

You can view the pictures below for a visual reference for key navigational points mentioned above.

Turn left before these signs, do not go through.

Turn right after this cattle guard.

Continue straight on this two track road.

Go through this gate, be sure to close it behind you.

The trailhead starts where the sign is.

After our hike we drove through Choteau on our way back to Augusta and stopped for an ice cream at the Old Trail Museum. It is kind of a tradition in our family to stop for ice cream when you are passing through. We also pulled over for a minute on our way back to Augusta to overlook the Egg Mountain dinosaur dig site.

The sign along the highway explaining Egg Mountain.

Another angle overlooking the Egg Mountain dig site.

Once back in Augusta, we found some dinner and took a little time to relax. There are several options for eating in Augusta including the Buckhorn Bar, the Western Bar and the Lazy B Bar and Cafe. They all seemed popular (busy) and over the course of the weekend we tried most of them and they were all good. After a short rest back at the motel, we then drove a short ways out of town to see if we could get some sunset pictures of the Rocky Mountains in the background. There were some storms that came in, so we never got exactly what I was hoping for, but I still got a couple of interesting shots of the sunset. The fist picture at the top of this blog post was also from this evening.

Some gate posts and barbed wire set against the sunset on the Rocky Mountain Front near Augusta, Montana.

The next morning we got up to explore Wagner Basin in the Sun Canyon area. The Sun Canyon can be accessed by heading west out of Augusta. There are a lot of things to explore in this area. Eventually you will end up at Gibson Dam if you keep following the canyon all the way up. Even if you don’t get out and hike, I would highly recommend just taking a drive up the canyon. The views of the mountains are spectacular and there is a short walk to an overlook of Gibson Dam and Reservoir that is worth checking out. There is also a small diversion dam on the way into the canyon where the Sun River and the main irrigation canal are divided from the flows out of Gibson Reservoir.

A panorama of the beaver pond area in Wagner Basin.

To access Wagner Basin (or Sun Canyon) from Augusta, head south on Main street until you come to the stop light (it’s the only stop light in town) and then turn right (west) onto Manix St. You will see the sign for Gibson Reservoir. Or turn left at the light if you our coming north on Highway 435 or keeping going straight through the light if you are coming from the east off Highway 287. Just keep going straight on this road and eventually you will leave town and it will turn into the Sun Canyon Road. You will eventually come to a Y in the road, and you will want to keep to the right. If you keep going straight (to the left) you will eventually end up on the Sun River Game Range (also an interesting area to explore). Keep following the Sun Canyon Road and eventually you pass the diversion dam and you will start going up the canyon. You will pass a campground and shortly after you will see a bridge on your right and this is Hanna Road, that is where you want to turn and go across the bridge. Once you get across the bridge you will see a turn to the right shortly after you cross, keep going straight. Eventually you will see another right, take that one. You will pass by some cabins and eventually the road just kind of dead ends in an open area where you will want to park. The trail follows along the river and goes in front of the rocky cliffs.

Wagner Basin is kind of a choose your own adventure type of area. There is a well developed trail that goes for about a half a mile and then it just kind of ends in the meadow. There is a beaver pond, a tree with some interesting skull art and a broken down picnic table. Once you get past this area, there is really no well defined trail. The best “trail” we could find kind of follows the beaver pond and then past some brushy areas and then starts to climb up the basin a bit. There are some hikes that use this area as a jumping off point, such as hiking Castle Reef. We chose to just kind of climb up on the hills to the north to see what we could find. We actually did not find a lot the day we were there. The area is supposed to be good for viewing bighorn sheep and some wildflowers my sister was interested in finding, but we did not find either. There are some pictographs and a cave shortly after you leave the parking area that were interesting though. I will probably have to try exploring this area again on a different day to see if maybe my luck would change. While we didn’t see a lot, it was still fun to get out and explore a little bit.

Hiking along the river.

My sister walking through the meadow in the basin.

Looking up the basin.

The skull tree.

Close up of the skull art on the tree.

Wider shot looking up the basin.

Looking down from above.

Cave along the trail in.

My sister in front of the cave.

Pictographs near the cave. The light was kind of harsh, so they didn't turn out great.

After hiking back out and spending some time in the canyon, it was time to head home. There are so many areas along the Rocky Mountain Front that I still feel like I have just started to scratch the surface. I have no doubt I will be spending more time exploring more areas, and I will do my best to share those with you.

Two coyotes howling in Yellowstone National Park.

I Love Yellowstone in the Winter!

Joshua Rutledge February 25, 2024

Over the weekend of February 17, 2024 I had the chance to spend some time in Yellowstone National Park again. It was on our radar that we wanted to visit the park again this winter, but with an abnormally low snow pack this year, we were not sure if it was worth the trip. Finally the last few weeks we have had some colder temperatures and some snow, so we thought we would give it a try. There was definitely still a lack of snow in the park, but it was better than the reports we had been getting earlier in the winter.

We left early on Saturday morning on our way to Gardiner, Montana. The North entrance to Yellowstone National Park is just outside of Gardiner and is the only entrance open during the winter months. The traditional road from the entrance through the canyon to Mammoth is still washed out, but they have a new winding alternative route up and over the hills into Mammoth. While there is a national park hotel in Mammoth we were able to find a cheaper hotel in Gardiner and that worked out well. The Roosevelt Hotel. If you are interested in doing any tours in Yellowstone during the winter, most of the tours leave from the Mammoth Hotel.

A panorama of the sunrise hitting the Crazy Mountains.

With the recent snows, on our way to Yellowstone we were greeted with some amazing colors on the Crazy Mountains during sunrise. The colors were getting better and better, but with the drifted snow on the sides of the road it took us a while to find a safe place to pull over to get some photographs. While we just missed the peak of the color on the snow covered mountains, they were still pretty spectacular. We made quick stops in Big Timber and Livingston and then it was through Gardiner and into the park. I think we got through the entrance of the park by around 9:30 AM Saturday morning.

Frost on a barbwire fence with the Crazy Mountains out of focus in the background.

It was a very warm day (by February standards in Montana) and there was not a cloud in the sky. While the sunny day made for nice weather, it was not the best for wildlife viewing or photography. With the quickly warming air and the cold snow covered ground there was a lot of a mirage as a result. If you check out the video posted below you can really see the turbulence in the air, and this made it very difficult to clearly photograph subjects.

That first morning we saw elk, tons of bison, many coyotes (more coyotes than I have ever seen before in the park), moose, an American Dipper, ravens, magpies and several other species. We even briefly saw some bighorn sheep way up on the ridge. Eventually we got a tip that there was a pack of wolves hanging in the Slough Creek area. Sure enough by the time we got back there, there was a pretty good crowd forming. We had to hike about a quarter of a mile or so to an overlook. The wolves were still in the area, but they were pretty far away. They had made a kill of a young bison the day before we got there, but they had pretty well consumed most of it by Saturday morning. A fellow photographer said there had been two black wolves on the kill earlier that morning, so I was kind of disappointed we missed that. As it was, there were a couple of coyotes picking over what was left of the kill and the wolves were still up on the hills sleeping off their big meal. The bison herd was still feeding in the creek below, so that was kind of interesting to see with the wolves still so close. Even with my Canon 600mm lens and 1.4X teleconverter the wolves were still pretty small in the frame. In one of the images below I was able to get 7 of the 8 wolves in one frame. They may be difficult to point out if you are viewing this on a small screen.

You can click on the images in the gallery below for a larger view.

While the days are getting longer, they are still pretty short this time of year, so it wasn’t long until it was already late afternoon in the park. We spotted several more coyotes and a nice bull elk on our way out of the park. We got back to Gardiner and checked into our hotel then went and found some dinner at the Cowboy’s Lodge and Grille. It was a nice little spot and the food was good. We then went back to the hotel and got ready for the next morning.

A bull moose browsing on some frost covered willows in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park.

Sunday morning was quite a departure from the sunny weather we had on Saturday. There was a heavy frost and some light snow in the air. While this caused its own challenges, it was more conducive to photography. We got back into the park right around sunrise (shortly after 7 AM) and headed back down to Lamar Valley. We did not have quite as much luck finding wildlife this morning. I am not sure if the changing weather had anything to do with that or not. We stopped where the wolves had been the day before, and they were still in the area but still too far away for any photography so we didn’t stay long. We made the decision to go back to where we found the moose the day before. There had been 6 bulls in the willows on the far end of Lamar Valley, but they were too far away for any good pictures on Saturday. I am glad we made the decision to go check again, as this morning the bulls had moved closer to the road and I was able to get some pretty good photos (and some video) of them. There was no place to park near by, so I ended up having to hike about a quarter of a mile to where the moose were. The frosty morning made for some interesting winter scenery surrounding them. With all of the snow and the dark moose, I was having to use at least two stops of exposure compensation to even things out a bit. After the moose moved into the timber and started laying down for the day, we continued towards Cooke City, hoping to maybe find a fox or something. We did not find any fox but we did find another moose, so that made 7 for the day, which is more than I have ever seen in the park before.

We finished our morning with a few more sightings of coyotes and elk, but that was about it. We had originally planned to stop in Mammoth on our way out to photograph the hot springs, but it was starting to snow pretty good at that point, so we figured we better get on the road before things got worse. We were able to make it back home without incident.

For this trip I felt like I had packed everything but the kitchen sink. Since I knew we would primarily be working out of a vehicle I was not too concerned about the weight or how much gear I was taking. Most of the time I ended up using my Canon 600 F4 version 2 lens, with and without the Canon 1.4x version 3 teleconverter and my Canon RF 100-500 L lens on my Canon R5 camera body. I also brought along my Canon R6 and my older EF Canon 100-400 version 2 lens and my Sigma 150-600 lens for my sister to use. I did shoot some video on my GoPro Hero 11 black as well.

I have really come to love visiting Yellowstone in the winter. I have just reached a point where the summer crowds make it hard to really enjoy the park anymore. Of course the park is beautiful in the summer and there are opportunities to see things in the summer that you can’t in the winter (bears for example), but I think I am willing to take that trade off for the relative quiet of the winter.

If you are interested in more about Yellowstone National Park, I do have a page dedicated to Yellowstone on my website (it needs some updating) as well as a previous blog post from a trip last year. Also, be sure to check out my video on YouTube posted below from our trip.

Video digest from my trip to Yellowstone.

Dedicated Yellowstone webpage.

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A panorama of Grinnell Glacier, along with Upper Grinnell Lake, Salamander Glacier and Gem Glacier.

Hiking to Grinnell Glaicer in Glacier National Park

Joshua Rutledge February 20, 2024

Back in August of 2023 I had the chance to hike to Grinnell Glacier with my wife Denise and younger sister Melissa. My sister and I had hiked to Iceberg Lake earlier in the summer and had debated at that time whether we should hike to Iceberg Lake or Grinnell Glacier. Since we had a chance to get back to Glacier National Park before the summer was over, we thought we would hike to Grinnell Glacier since we did not get to during our previous trip. If you want to check out my blog from our hike to Iceberg Lake you can find it here: Blog - Hiking to Iceberg Lake.

We decided to take the boats across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine to cut a few miles off of the hike. We also thought the boat ride just sounded like fun. The boat leaves from out front of the picturesque Many Glacier Hotel. The hotel is designed to look like a Swiss Chalet in the alps. Some of the staff even wear lederhosen to complete the experience. The Many Glacier Hotel is located on the east side of Glacier National Park in the Many Glacier area.

We boarded the boat and were on our way across Swiftcurrent Lake. The early boat we were on is strictly for passengers looking for transportation across the lake. It is a one way trip, you do get a ticket to ride back later, you just can’t stay on the boat that first trip, you have to disembark. They do not do a full tour of the lake since it is just for transportation purposes. They do give some information on the ride over, but if you want an actual tour of the lake with more commentary, you would want to book one of those tours later in the day. You can reserve your tickets online ahead of time and I would highly recommend you do so. You do have the option to buy tickets at the booth the day of, but there is no guarantee they will have any available.

They drop you off at the dock on the far end of Swiftcurrent Lake and then there is a short quarter of a mile or so hike over the ridge to another dock on Lake Josephine. The hike is not too bad, but it can be a little rough, so if you are traveling with someone with mobility issues, this could be a problem. If I am not mistaken, the ridge between Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine is actually a glacier moraine. From there you board another boat and it takes you across to another dock on the far end of Josephine Lake. There is a small covered structure and some pit toilets near the dock. This dock serves as a pickup point for hikers coming back, so they provide the structure so there is somewhere you can sit and get out of the elements waiting for your return boat ride. There are pickups and drop offs scheduled throughout the day depending on how busy the tour boat schedule is. The last boat of the day continues to go back and forth until all of the passengers are picked up, so don’t panic if you don’t get on the first boat going back. If you do return too late and miss the last boat of the day however, you will have to hike the 2 miles or so back to the hotel (or wherever you started from.)

If you don’t want to take the boat rides, you can start your hike at the Many Glacier Hotel or there is also a parking lot between the Many Glacier Hotel and the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn that is also a popular jumping off spot. I believe either of these options adds about 2 miles both ways to your hike. So what is a 6 mile or so hike with the boats becomes over a 10 mile hike without. If you just want a nice easy hike around one or both lakes without hiking to the glacier, that is a great option too. You can also hike to Grinnell Lake instead of the glacier and this is a relatively easy hike as well. The hike to Grinnell Lake also leaves from the end of Josephine Lake.

Injured cow moose in the marshy area of Lake Josephine in Glacier National Park.

When we got dropped off to start our hike there was a wounded cow moose in the swampy area at the end of the lake. We can’t be sure, but my guess would be she may have had a run in with a grizzly bear. Both moose and grizzly bears are common in this area, so you will want to remember to bring your bear spray. The hike starts by crossing this swampy area at the end of the lake. If you keep going straight, you will go to Grinnell Lake. There is a foot bridge that crosses the main channel of the creek and then there are some boardwalks that help navigate you over the swampy areas. There is then a steep climb up the mountain that eventually connects with the main trail along the lake people use if they don’t take the boat. There are some great views of Josephine Lake once you make that initial climb.

First view of Grinnell Lake as you are hiking to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park.

As you continue up the trail you continue to climb and eventually you will get your first glimpse of Grinnell Lake. From there you can also see the Salamander Glacier and the waterfall that comes out of Upper Grinnell Lake. You can’t quite see Grinnel Glacier from this vantage however. The hike continues up the side of the mountain and you work your way higher and higher above Grinnell Lake until you are eventually looking almost straight down on it. This hike, while shorter than Iceberg Lake, is a lot more strenuous as you are continually climbing. There are a couple of stretches that are pretty steep. There are also some stretches that are along cliff faces, so if you are afraid of heights, this might not be the best hike for you.

A view Grinnell Falls, Grinnell Glacier and a field of fireweed and other wildflowers.

At one point along the hike we got stopped by a group of bighorn sheep rams that were licking the salts off the cliffs near a waterfall that the trail runs under. I was honestly not bothered at all by the delay as it was a lot of fun to watch the bighorn sheep. I was happy I brought my 100-500 lens as I was able to get some pretty good shots of the rams. Eventually they did move off the trail and we were able to continue on our hike. You can select each image in the gallery below for a larger view.

Before you reach the last climb up to Grinnell Glacier, there is a flat area with some benches and a couple of primitive pit toilets. We encountered a couple more bighorn sheep in this area. As I mentioned, there is a pretty steep climb from the rest area up to the area of Upper Grinnell Lake and Grinnell Glacier. When you are on top you are greeted with an amazing view of Upper Grinnell Lake below you, the Grinnell Glacier, Salamander Glacier and Gem Glacier. And if you turn around behind you, you can see Grinnell Lake, Lake Josephine and Lake Sherburne in the distance. Being able to see 4 lakes from one location is pretty awesome. Unfortunately you can’t see Swiftcurrent Lake as it is tucked behind the mountain.

A view of Grinnell Lake, Lake Josephine and Lake Sherburne.

There is then a short hike down to Upper Grinnell Lake. The landscape here is very interesting. Since the glacier is still receding, it has left a barren rocky landscape in its wake. You can see where the rock has been ground away by the ice. Since the glacier has become very unstable they don’t recommend you actually go out on it anymore. So we did not. We did see a few brave souls out on it however. As I mentioned, besides Grinnell Glacier, you can also see Salamander Glacier, with an amazing waterfall down into Upper Grinnell Lake and the Gem Glacier as well. The cliffs behind the lake make up part of the famous Garden Wall. If you have gone over Logan Pass on the Going to the Sun Road, you have seen the other side of the Garden Wall, or maybe you have even hiked in this area before.

A panorama of Grinnell Glacier, Upper Grinnell Lake, Gem Glacier and Salamander Glacier.

The lake itself reminded me a lot of Iceberg Lake. It has chunks of ice floating in it as well as the tall imposing cliffs behind it. The water is a bit more milky from the active glaciers however. And of course the water is freezy cold like Iceberg Lake as well. While we were sitting and enjoying the views, we were visited by a couple of Golden-mantled ground squirrels and some birds. So even though it was a somewhat barren landscape, it was not void of life. I think it is also possible to see mountain goats, but we did not the day we were there. As with all of the photographs in this blog, you can select the individual pictures for a larger view.

After enjoying the views, eating a quick snack and dipping our feet in the cold water, it was time to start the hike back down. On the way back down I spotted a young bull moose wading in the waters of Grinnell Lake below me. It was pretty cool to see. I was hoping to find a pika as well, as they have been on my list for a while to photograph. While I had some quick glances of a few, I was never able to get a great picture. Something for another day I guess. By the time we returned to the boat dock it had started to rain lightly. The weather can be very unpredictable so always go prepared for a variety of conditions. I had packed my lightweight rain jacket, so even though I hadn’t needed it all day I was glad I had it. There was already a fairly large group of folks waiting for the boat, so we actually had to wait a half an hour or so until the next boat came by.

A young bull moose wading in the shores of Grinnell Lake as seen above on the trail to Grinnell Glacier.

While it was a pretty strenuous hike, I think it is probably my favorite I have ever done so far in Glacier National Park. The views are just amazing and there is always a chance for wildlife and lots of wildflowers along the way. I would certainly add it to your list if you have not done it yet. For this hike I had along my Canon R5, the Canon RF 24-105 L lens, my Canon RF 100-500 L lens and my GoPro Hero 11 Black. I was using my small ThinkTank Backstory 13 as my backpack.

We were in Glacier National Park for a couple of days, so we also spent some time looking for wildlife and driving over the famous Going to the Sun Road. Here is a little photo gallery of some of the other photos I captured during this trip.

Youtube video from our hike to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park.

If you are interested in being notified when future blogs come out, please use my Contact page and let me know to add you to the email list.

For other information about Glacier National Park you may want to check out the following pages/posts on my website as well:

Dedicated page for Glacier National Park.

Blog - Hiking to Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 1, June 2022.

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 2, June 2022.

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 3, June 2022.

Blog - New Year - Catching up on Glacier Trips 2021.

A panorama of Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park.

Hiking to Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park

Joshua Rutledge February 11, 2024

This last July, 2023, my sister Melissa and I decided to hike to Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park. It was a hike we had talked about doing many times before, but just never had, so we made it a point last summer to finally do it.

The sign at the Iceberg Ptarmigan Trailhead.

The trailhead for the hike leaves from behind the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn in Many Glacier on the east side of Glacier National Park. This is the same trailhead you would use if you wanted to hike to Ptarmigan Tunnel (Lake) or even locations passed there. There is a small parking area right at the trailhead, but it fills up quickly so you may need to park in the bigger parking lot in front of the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and walk behind the cabins to the trailhead. There is also the option to hike from the Many Glacier Hotel as well, but of course that will add to the distance of your hike. As with all areas in Glacier National Park, I would recommend getting to the trailhead early, as parking anywhere close by might become impossible. Your other option is to wait until later in the afternoon when people have started to leave for the day, but make sure you leave yourself enough time to finish the hike. For the average hiker it is probably a 4 or 5 hour hike. Luckily the summer days in Montana are long. Also check on the reservation/ticketing requirements for the Many Glacier area as it tends to change year to year.

This area is home to many grizzly bears so I would be sure to bring along bear spray on your hike. We saw a grizzly bear within the first mile or so of the hike. It was a rather quick encounter so I was not able to capture any photographs or video of the bear. And we heard reports from other hikers that some others were spotted that morning as well. There are also a lot of moose in the area. As is always the case in Glacier National Park, the weather can be very unpredictable so be sure that you are prepared for a variety of conditions. It can be difficult to predict when the trail will be open year to year, but typically it is from late June/early July into early October. If you arrive too early in the season the trail might be closed all together, or there may be snow/ice fields you have to cross to get to the lake. Check with the rangers if you have any concerns about the hiking conditions or if the trail is open. Besides the weather, sometimes the trails are closed because of bear activity. The benefit of going earlier in the season is that there tends to be more “icebergs” in the lake than there are later in the season. But, if you wait and go in the fall you may be able to experience some fall colors and the crowds will be less. If you wait too late however, there may already be too much snow up high to get to the lake.

It is about a 10 mile hike round trip (assuming you leave from the trailhead at the Swiftcurrent Inn) with over 1,200 feet of elevation gain. I have seen different quotes between about 1,200 and 1,500 feet, so I am not sure what the correct elevation gain is. It is not a particularly challenging hike, some of the worst of it is actually the first quarter mile or so from the trailhead as it is a rather steep ascent up to where it meets the Ptarmigan Trail coming from the Many Glacier Hotel. Eventually it does even out some and from there it is a more continuous gradual elevation gain up to the lake.

Wildflowers and the Ptarmigan Wall near Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park.

Some paintbrush flowers along the trail.

Some small white flowers on the trail to Iceberg Lake.

A Dusky Grouse we observed on the trail to Iceberg Lake.

As you hike, you will see some awesome vistas of the mountains and the valley below. Unfortunately the day we were hiking there was a lot of smoke from wildfires up in Canada, so some of our view was obstructed and it also added weird lighting to some of my photographs. Depending on the time of year, you will see a variety of wildflowers and animal species along the way. As I mentioned earlier, keep your eyes open for bears and moose especially. It is a very popular trail, so if you are uncomfortable hiking in bear country, ask if you can join some other hikers for safety in numbers.

Melissa crossing over the bridge that is just above Ptarmigan Falls.

About halfway through your hike you will find yourself at Ptarmigan Falls. Unfortunately you never get a great view of the falls due to the terrain. But you can see a pretty good portion of it through the trees. As you arrive above the falls, there is a nice rocky area that is a popular spot to rest and maybe have a snack. There is also a primitive pit toilet in the area as well. As you leave the falls, you will cross a wooden bridge and you will have a very good picturesque view up the valley and the creek running at your feet below into the falls. This is also the area where the trail splits to either continue on to Iceberg Lake or go up to Ptarmigan Lake/Tunnel. Stay to the left to go to Iceberg Lake.

The creek crossing just before you get to Iceberg Lake, with the Ptarmigan Wall in the background.

From there you will continue to climb for another couple of miles as you start to close in on the base of the Ptarmigan Wall and a small lake that is kind of an offshoot of Iceberg lake, I do not know if it has a name. While we were there, there was an amazing field of wildflowers surrounding the small lake. As you continue up the last little climb you will cross the creek again and you will start to get your first glimpses of where the lake will appear. After you step out of the last grove of trees, Iceberg Lake and the surrounding cliffs will be right in front of you. It is very difficult to capture just how imposing the cliffs are in front of you. You really have to see it to believe it.

Ice floating in Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park.

Of course we stayed at the lake for some time. We dipped our tired feet in, and it was VERY cold. For a second the cold water felt good, but it quickly became too cold for me. I have seen pictures of people swimming in the lake, but no one was brave enough the morning we were there, but lots of people did wade out into the frigid waters. We ate a snack, rested for a little bit, enjoyed the views and then started the hike back down. Since we had got a pretty early start, we passed a lot of people coming up the trail as we were going down. I was glad we got there early to avoid the crowds.

Another panorama of Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park.

Despite the smoky conditions, the hike was awesome. Next time I may have to try the Ptarmigan Tunnel trail, as I have heard there are some spectacular views from there as well. I know some people have completed both sections of the trail in a single day, but I am not in good enough shape to do that. Later in the summer of 2023, we also did a hike to Grinnell Glacier which was also amazing. Both hikes are awesome, but I think the Grinnell hike might edge out Iceberg Lake, but only by a little bit, as my favorite. I will write a blog about our hike to Grinnell later on, so please check back.

We were actually in the park for a couple of days on this trip, so here are some pictures from the rest of our time in the park. For our hike I had my Canon R5, Canon RF 24-105, Canon RF 100-500 and my GoPro Hero 11 Black. I also had my Canon 600 F4 version 2 lens along for this trip for wildlife when not on our hike. As with all of the pictures in the blog, you can select the image for a larger pop out view.

If you are interested in being notified when future blogs come out, please use my Contact page and let me know to add you to the email list.

For other information about Glacier National Park you may want to check out the following pages/posts on my website as well:

Dedicated page for Glacier National Park.

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 1, June 2022.

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 2, June 2022.

Blog - Glacier National Park Day 3, June 2022.

Blog - New Year - Catching up on Glacier Trips 2021.

Waterfall on Falls Creek on the Rocky Mountain Front.

Rocky Mountain Front - New Year's 2024

Joshua Rutledge January 1, 2024

Happy New Year’s everyone, welcome to 2024! I spent the last day of 2023 out exploring the Rocky Mountain Front with my sister Melissa. I have spent a fair amount of time over the years enjoying places across the front, but we decided to check out a couple of new places neither of us had been to before. Typically this late into winter most places along the front are not accessible, but with the warm dry winter we have had so far, most of the roads are still passable. So we thought we would take the opportunity to get into a few places while we had the day off. I do hope we start to get some snow soon however, or it could be a bad fire season and hard on our local waterways this summer.

The wooden sign marking the trail for the Falls Creek trailhead, Trailhead 229.

Our first stop was to explore Falls Creek, which is a tributary of the Dearborn River. In particular we were hoping to explore some of the waterfalls that give the creek its name. You can now access the Falls Creek trailhead, Trailhead 229, from the Dearborn Canyon Road. I say “now” because this is a fairly recent change. The area has a long history of use, but for many years the area was closed to the public due to a private land dispute. Recently however, with the help of RMEF (the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation) this section of land was purchased and given over to the Forest Service to protect public access going forward. In full disclosure, I am a member of RMEF and I think they do great work when it comes to protecting wildlife habitat and public access.

An informational sign posted at the trailhead for Falls Creek.

The Dearborn Canyon Road can be found about 15 miles south of Augusta via Highway 434, and you turn right onto the road and go by Bean Lake. There are other ways you can access this area depending on which direction you are traveling from so you may want to check. Once you hit Bean Lake, you travel up the road another 3 or 4 miles and you will see a fenced off pull in area on your left with some Forest Service information signs and a pit toilet. You park there and the trailhead is clearly marked behind the signage (there is also a locked vehicle gate at the start of the trailhead.) The trail starts with a fairly steep climb up the side of the hill. Eventually it does level out and then you wind around through some small open meadows, pine forests and down through an aspen grove. When you climb up a short hill coming out of the aspen grove, you will come out on a little clear patch and you will see a smaller trail going off to the left, it is not marked, as of December 2023 anyway, but this is the trail to view the first waterfall. I meant to track the distance but I forgot, but I am guessing it’s maybe a half a mile or so from the trailhead to the first overlook. The main Falls Creek trail keeps going and will eventually take you past some other waterfalls. We did not keep going on this particular day, but I do plan to go back in the future to explore Falls Creek further.

Looking at the first falls from the overlook on Falls Creek. As always, you can select each photo for a larger view.

If you walk back up the hill a little ways from the overlook, you can get a more head on view of the falls.

A little tighter composition of the falls from the overlook.

From near the overlook of the first falls, there is another small trail that goes off and goes along the rim to the top of the falls. If you are careful, there is a place where you can make it down to the water at the top of the falls. Since it was icy, we decided it was not worth the risk. If you keep taking this small trail that stays above the creek, you will eventually come to a really cool gorge cut out of the rock. This was a nice surprise as I had not seen anything about this before in my research. The green water and colorful rocks reminded me a lot of the Avalanche Creek Gorge in Glacier National Park. It looks as though the trail did keep going along the creek towards the gorge, but we hit a long ice field near the gorge and decided it was not safe to proceed. We walked back to the main overlook for one more look at the falls and then headed back to the trailhead.

A view closer to the falls from the trail that follows above Falls Creek.

A view of the gorge on Falls Creek with the green water cutting through the rocks.

Looking more up through the gorge to see another small waterfall through the rocks.

We ate a quick lunch and then drove the rest of the way up the Dearborn Canyon Road to see where the road ends at another trailhead, Trailhead 206. This trail will take you along the Dearborn River and eventually into the Scapegoat Wilderness if you travel far enough. Once we found the end of the road, we drove back out to the main highway, 434, and drove North a few miles back towards Augusta until we found the Elk Creek Road to our left. Our destination up Elk Creek was Cataract Falls.

The wooden sign for Cataract Falls, Trail 237.

To find Cataract Falls is pretty easy, you just keep driving Elk Creek Road until you can’t go any farther. The road goes in quite a ways and you pass just below Haystack Butte which makes for a scenic route. The road was pretty rough in a few places so you might want a higher clearance vehicle depending on the road conditions. The road will dead end at a trailhead and there are places to park and a pit toilet. This trailhead is Trailhead 205 and will take you to Steamboat Mountain among other possible locations in this area. You do not actually need to go on the trail however, the trail to Cataract Falls is actually to your left, across the creek, as you are looking at the trailhead sign. If you look across the creek from the parking area you will see a small wooden sign that says Cataract Falls with an arrow. You do have to cross the creek and a couple of other smaller creeks, so depending on what time of year you are there, you might want to keep that in mind. Since we were there so late in the year, the water in the creeks was pretty low, so we were able to walk on the rocks and did not have to worry about getting wet. One of the smaller creek crossings however was very icy, so we had to be careful.

If you keep going past the trail to the falls you can eventually meet up with one of the trails coming off the main trailhead.

The “hike” to Cataract Falls is very short, and other than the creek crossings, very easy. There is only a small elevation gain and the falls are probably only a quarter of a mile or so from the parking area. If you keep following the trail you will eventually find yourself going into a box canyon and at the end is Cataract Falls cascading down the cliff face. I am not actually sure how tall the falls are, but it is rather significant. I was having a hard time trying to capture the scale with my camera.

I failed to capture a wider shot of the falls and the cliffs as you approach, so I grabbed this still from a video off my GoPro.

Looking up Cataract Falls. Remember you can select photos for a larger view.

I walked over some boulders across the creek to get a little different perspective of the falls.

I wanted to zoom in on some of the ice features to capture more details.

Given the time of year, the falls was a mix of frozen features as well as free flowing water. I thought it was about a perfect combination of both. I have been told that on colder winters when the falls is completely frozen people use it as an icing climbing location. Since we had the falls to ourselves we spent a fair amount of time taking in the scene before heading back to the parking lot. We had thought about maybe checking out a couple of other places on the front, but with the short winter days we figured it was probably time to start heading back home. Other than a quick stop at the Lowry Bridge recreation site to look around, we head straight home.

We had a great time exploring and definitely found some new areas to go back and explore further. For the new year I am thinking about maybe starting a newsletter so I can notify everyone when a new blog comes out or if I am out having any adventures people want to follow me along on. If you are interested, please use my Contact page and let me know! I promise not to spam you with anything else.

Again, Happy New Year’s to everyone! I hope you continue to follow my blog to see what I am up to next.

A short video featuring some footage of Cataract Falls and still images set to music.

A short video of the falls on Falls creek along with some still images set to music.

A mother bear, known as 901, and her three cubs walking down in the road towards us in Katmai National Park.

Katmai National Park and Preserve

Joshua Rutledge September 9, 2023

As tends to happen, I am way behind on my blog entries again. I have had such a busy summer that I have not had a chance to sit down and post anything. I have several posts I still need to make from this summer, including a couple of trips to Glacier National Park and a trip that included Iceland and Norway. I decided that I would work backwards however and make a post about my most recent trip which was to Katmai National Park while it is still fresh in my mind.

A brown bear walking on he beach of Naknek Lake near the Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park. I liked this picture because it has the bear, the lake, the mountains and a National Park sign that says “Katmai National Park” so it kind of sums up the experience.

We (my sister Melissa, my wife Denise and myself) were in Katmai National Park September 1-4, 2023. We were there for four days and three nights. Of course the first and last days were not full days since they included travel to and from. We added an extra day in Anchorage on the front of the trip, just to make sure if there were any travel delays we would have some wiggle room. We had to overnight in Anchorage again on the way back due to the timing and availability of flights coming home.

A still frame taken from a video off my GoPro showing a mountain somewhere in Alaska while we were in flight to Anchorage.

We left Great Falls on Wednesday afternoon on an Alaska Airlines flight. Alaska is the only airline in our area that flies into King Salmon, so that was our primary reason for choosing them. There may be some more regional options depending on where you are. Luckily we had a combination of mileage points and buddy passes, so the flights were not too expensive. We had a quick layover in Seattle and then it was up to Anchorage. It was fairly late in the day by the time we got to Anchorage, so we found a quick bite to eat and then settled into the motel for the evening. The next morning we got up and decided to take a drive. Knowing we would be in town for the day we rented a car. Rental cars in Alaska can be very difficult to come by, so as soon as you know you are going, I would recommend making a car reservation if you need one.

We started out going down the Seward Highway hoping to maybe spot some beluga whales or maybe see some dall sheep up on the cliffs. The morning was super windy and raining however and we did not end up spotting anything. We had thought about a few other options for places that we like to go, for example the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, but we decided that in the storm nothing outside was probably going to be a lot of fun. So we drove back into Anchorage to see what we could find. There was some shopping involved and some poking around downtown. Eventually the storm cleared and the afternoon in Anchorage was actually pretty nice. We explored a few other areas along the ocean closer to downtown Anchorage hoping to spot some sealife, but we did not find a lot. The tide was super low due to the “Super Moon” so I am sure that had some effect. We ended the day with a trip to Moose’s Tooth Pizza which is one of our favorites stops in Anchorage.

The next morning we had a few hours until our flight, so we decided to take the drive down the Seward Highway to try our luck again looking for whales. This time we did have success, we finally spotted some beluga’s! When we first spotted them they were actually pretty close to the highway, but unfortunately it was in a very busy stretch of the road where there were not a lot of pull offs to view them. We tried to keep track of them as we could find places to pull over, but due to the terrain and the trees we could never get a clear view while they were still close to the road. I guess I should mention for those that are not familiar, the Seward Highway has a stretch that is along the shore of the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet, if you are wondering why we are looking for whales from a road. Eventually we did spot some way out, but they were too far away to get a good look. If we didn’t have a flight to catch we may have stopped at Beluga Point or somewhere and hoped the whales eventually would come past us, but we just didn’t have the time. So we headed back to Anchorage to catch our flight to King Salmon.

This grainy picture is the only proof I have of us seeing the beluga whales, but hopefully you can trust me.

There are a couple of jumping off points to get to Katmai National Park (Homer is popular and some even come directly from Anchorage), but King Salmon is probably the most popular. There are a couple of float plane companies there, as well as a water taxi that can take you into Katmai. There are no roads into Katmai, so by float plane or boat are your only options for getting there. We chose to use a smaller company called Branch River Air. We had a great experience with them and they were cheaper than the more well known Katmai Air that also services the area. Branch River Air met us at the airport when we arrived and shuttled us back to their “terminal” along the river. I would guess we were in the air to Katmai within an hour of touching down in King Salmon, so I would say that’s pretty good service. This was the first time for all of us being in a float plane, so it was a lot of fun. Well, except for my wife who gets easily air/car sick. It was windy and rainy that day, so it was a bit of a bumpy flight for her, but she made it ok. Luckily it is only about a 20 minute flight. We had heard that the water taxi routinely gets canceled or delayed because of weather, so we chose the float plane option largely for that reason. And I am glad we did, as the water taxi was canceled on the day we flew out. If it gets canceled there are only a few options for places to stay in King Salmon, so you are probably better off staying in Anchorage if you can’t find a float plane to take you.

A view out the window of the float plane from my GoPro on the way to Katmai National Park.

My sister Melissa and the pilot inside of the float plane on our way to Katmai.

Upon landing in Katmai you are immediately escorted to “Bear School” which is in the visitor center just above the beach from where you land. With all of the bears in the area it is important for everyone to be educated on the procedures and potential dangers. It is a good thing that you are brought to bear school right away, since an encounter with a bear could happen at any time and anywhere so it’s good to know what to do and expect. After you complete your “bear school” the ranger gives you a pin as proof you completed the training.

This is looking up from the beach to the Visitors Center (Left) and there is a storage building for your food and gear (right.)

A picture from my GoPro inside of the Visitor Center during our “Bear School.”

The pin you get upon finishing “Bear School.”

The sign on the beach welcoming you to Brooks Camp. The building in the background is the back of the Visitors Center. There are some old moose antlers strewn about for photo ops.

We then headed over to the Brooks Lodge to check-in and get the keys to our cabin where we would be staying. You basically only have two options for staying in Katmai, it is either at the Brooks Lodge or in the campground. Since those two options are very limited, which I will get to more shortly, a lot of people elect to just fly/boat into Katmai for day trips. This makes the mornings and evenings way less busy for those staying in the park. The campground is by reservation only and it can be difficult to secure a spot. It is surrounded by an electric fence and is located maybe a ¼ mile or so from the main lodge area. There are strict rules about where you can store your food/supplies and where you are allowed to eat/cook within the campground. We knew that we did not want to camp, so we elected to try and get a spot at the lodge. The lodge reservations are given out by a lottery system due to the high demand and limited space. The lottery is held almost a year in advance, so if you want to stay at the lodge, you really need to plan ahead. It took us about three years after deciding this was something we wanted to do for us to finally get a spot. And our spot was actually as a result of a cancellation, so we were notified of the availability and we had less than 24 hours to either say yes or no. So it all happened very fast. Since we took a cancellation spot, we did not get to request a date, so we ended up going in September, which probably wouldn’t have been our first choice. But it actually ended up working out well. The crowds are MUCH smaller in September then they would have been earlier in the summer. We may not have seen as many bears as we would have in peak season, but avoiding the crowds made it worth it. We still saw plenty of bears.

Looking from the bridge back to the main lodge (center frame) and the check-in and general store building (right.) There is also a public bathroom kind of behind the brush to the far left.

The Brooks Lodge is actually kind of a complex of buildings. There is a building where you check in and is kind of the service desk. The back half of the building is actually a little general store where you can get some food and basic supplies from. Across from the check-in building is the main lodge that has a small bar, a seating area around a wood burning fireplace and the back half is set up for buffet style meals. There is a buffet line setup and then several tables with bench seating. There is also a little drink station off to the side where you can get coffee, hot chocolate, cider, tea or just hot/cold water. Those items are complementary and are available anytime the lodge is open. We took advantage of the coffee a lot. You are only allowed to eat/drink (besides water) inside enclosed buildings or designated picnic areas. So you find yourself in the lodge a lot, even just to drink coffee. You are allowed to have snacks in your room, but no “smelly foods” which they were not very specific about. We did bring some snacks along that we kept in our cabin, but they were all prepackaged low-smelling foods, so we felt like we were ok.

They serve hot meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also have “light” options for lunch and dinner which is basically a soup and salad bar. The meals are a little expensive, but it’s to be expected. We found them all to be pretty good and tasty though. The eating area could become pretty crowded however due to the limited space. We had poor weather most of the time we were there, which I think tended to keep the lodge a little busier since many people were in there just to warm up and dry off.

A sow (female) bear with her cubs right outside our front door, I took this pictures standing in our doorway. They moved along pretty quickly, I was lucky to se them as I had just happened to open the door and there they were.

A large bear that was feeding on the grass and was just about to lay down in front of our cabin when a ranger came to scare it off. This picture was also taken from the entrance to our cabin.

Speaking of expensive, staying at Brooks Lodge is not cheap. And I realize it is out of the price range for a lot of people. They raised prices again this year due to the rising costs of everything else. The cabins all sleep 4 people (bunk beds) so if you can split the cost a few ways, it does become a little more doable. I would throw out a word of caution however, the rooms are not very private, so I would make sure it is with people you enjoy and are comfortable around. I mention that, as I have seen posts of people looking to join other groups to share costs and increase their chances of getting a room. So that is something to really think about if you are going to be staying with strangers. There is just a curtain you can pull to create a little bit of a private area in the back of the cabin but otherwise it is just one room with a small table and the bunk beds. There was a sink, a small shower and a toilet in the room. The toilet was in a small room by itself. The view from our cabin was amazing though. We could often see bears out in the river from our room and on multiple occasions had bears pass right outside of our door. And with the rainy weather it was nice to have a dry place to go, I felt bad for the people camping. And I guess I should explain why I am going back and forth between “room” and “cabin.” Brooks Lodge has several small single unit cabins but there is also a larger building (cabin) that has several rooms in it. We were in the bigger cabin that has multiple separate rooms. The size and layouts of the rooms are virtually identical whether you have a single unit cabin or a “room” in the larger one. I think it would be quieter though in a single unit as we could hear a lot of noise from the neighboring rooms in our cabin.

A bear named “Gully” fishing on top of Brooks Falls. I had two pictures in mind that I really wanted to get, this one, using a slow shutter speed to smooth out the water and a bear actually catching a salmon in its mouth.

OK! So for all of you that are just here for the bears, here we go. I wanted to include all of that background information though, as maybe it will be helpful if there is anyone that is interested in visiting Katmai reading this.

So, as I have already alluded to, there are bears everywhere at Katmai. I would say at least several times a day rangers were chasing bears away from the lodge area. And almost every time we left our room we would see a bear somewhere (and oftentimes we didn’t even need to leave our room to see bears), it was pretty awesome. While Katmai National Park is huge, the main area most people think of as “Katmai” is actually pretty small. It consists of the Brooks Lodge area (and the Visitor Center is close by, along with the campground) , the main trail to Brooks Falls, the Falls itself of course and Lake Brooks.

A bear passing between the lodge and entrance to the bridge over the Brooks River.

Brooks Camp is actually on the shore of Naknek Lake. And then the Brooks River connects Naknek Lake to Lake Brooks and Brooks Falls is on that river. You might want to bring up a map to try and make sense of all that. There is a river, the Naknek River, that connects Naknek Lake to the ocean in Kvichak Bay for the salmon to navigate to get all the way up to Lake Brooks from the ocean. It is actually pretty impressive how far they have to go. The majority of the bear viewing action happens in and around the Brooks River, including the shores of Lake Brooks and Naknek Lake.

Looking out over where the Brooks River runs into Naknek Lake.

A sign marking the picnic area at Lake Brooks. Just off frame is a covered area surrounded by an electric fence were you can picnic.

A not very good panorama of Lake Brooks. It was storming pretty good so I wasn’t able to capture any good images of the lake. It was actually a lot larger then I was expecting.

They built a bridge over the Brooks River with several viewing platforms known as the “North” and “South” viewing platforms. From the bridge you can see a good portion of the lower Brooks River, which is kind of slow moving water and the shore of Naknek Lake. The salmon runs while we were there were kind of in between the sockeye and the silvers, so we saw more bears in this area then we did at the falls. The sockeye were done spawning and were kind of on their last legs and they were congregating in the backwater areas around the bridge, so the bears were there too. The silver salmon were just getting started but not in large numbers yet at the falls. We did see some fish jumping the falls, but not a lot. As a result, the most bears we ever saw at the falls was 5, but usually it was only 2 or 3. And sometimes when we went there were none. On a good day during the peak of the salmon runs you can see over 30 bears at once at the falls for some comparison. The salmon runs were a little late this year because of the cold spring, so I think things were kind of off this season in general.

A view from the bridge looking back toward Brooks Camp and one of the viewing platforms.

Looking at the bridge the opposite direction from Brooks Camp including the other viewing platform.

Looking down the bridge to Brooks Camp. The Brooks River is to your left and Naknek Lake would be just to your right.

My wife Denise taking a picture of a bear from one of the bridge viewing platforms, this give you some perspective on how close you can view the bears.

From the start of the trail/bridge it’s a little over a mile to the viewing platforms at Brooks Falls. There are actually two platforms there. One is overlooking the falls themselves and one is just down stream called the “Riffles Platform” that kind of looks up river to the falls. Of course the platform at the falls gives you the iconic up close and personal views of the bears at the falls, but the Riffles Platform gives you kind of a wider perspective of the falls. So both are worth visiting. The boardwalk kind of splits at a place called the “Treehouse” to go to either of the viewing platforms. This is a covered area with some benches and informational materials posted. It serves as kind of a staging area during the peak season to control traffic to the platforms. When the crowds get too large they will limit how many people and for how long you can be at the platforms so everyone gets a turn. It was so nice going in September as that was a non issue for us. A few times we even had the platforms to ourselves and at most there were maybe a dozen people at any given time.

Looking down the raised boardwalk leading to the Falls and Riffles viewing platforms.

A view from the “Riffles” platform looking up to Brooks Falls. There are 4 bears in this picture. The most we saw at one time was 5.

The classic view from the Falls platform. The bear on the right was starting to encroach on the bear above the falls and it was not very happy about it.

Please Check out the gallery below to view some of my favorite images from the Falls. As with all of the pictures in this blog, depending on your device you should be able to select the picture for a larger view.

This next gallery below are pictures taken from the bridge viewing platforms or areas not immediately near the falls.

If you don’t take the trail to go to Brooks Falls (there is a pit toilet at the fork if you need it) you can stay on the road and end up at Lake Brooks. This was supposed to be a little over a mile hike as well, but we all agreed it seems farther than that, as compared to going to the falls. We saw several bears on the road to the lake and we saw signs of bears at the lake, but none at the lake itself. It is also common to see lynx on this road, so that was largely why we made the hike, we did not see any lynx, but talked to people that had. There is a large population of snowshoe hares in the area, so that’s what attracts the lynx. So, as I mentioned, there is a road between the bridge and Lake Brooks. This road is the start of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes tour you can do, and is the only road in the park. There are some buildings near Lake Brooks and the National Park Service housing is in this area. Since there are no roads to the park, the few vehicles that are there had to be brought in on barges. They have some information posted about that in the visitor center I think it was, so that was kind of interesting. We did not feel like we had time to do the tour, as it takes up a pretty good portion of a day, but if I ever get back there it is probably something I would try. The tour takes you to where the last volcanic eruption was (1912) in the area and kind of explores the geology of the area and looks at the aftermath of what was left behind.

We spent our days kind of going back and forth between our cabin, the lodge, the bridge and the viewing areas looking for bears and taking care of what we needed to. I don’t think we tracked every day, but most days I think we put in at least 10 miles going back and forth to everything. There may have also been some naps and downtime involved in there too. It pretty much rained (and sometimes there were heavy winds as well) the first three days we were there, so it was difficult to stay out for long stretches of time. If it had been nicer weather it probably would have been easier to just camp out at some of the locations for longer periods. We did take in the ranger lead Cultural Walk that was interesting. There were some evening ranger lead talks similar to other National Parks as well. Oh there was an auditorium building there too I forgot to mention, where the talks were held. We also spent some time looking for non-bear viewing opportunities. For example I found a lot of interesting mushrooms and fungus growing like I had never seen before. There were usually small mammals and birds around to view as well. The one upside to the cool rainy weather was the lack of bugs. The few times there were breaks in the weather however, the bugs did come out. We had been warned of this so we brought head nets to wear. I am glad we did. We didn’t need them often, but when we did they were nice to have. Obviously it is also important to bring good rain gear with you too.

Please check out this gallery for some of my non bear pictures I was able to capture.

As far as gear goes, we all packed as light as possible for this trip. There is a weight (and space) limit on the small float planes that bring you in. We also did not want to risk having any bags not showing up from checking things in with the airlines, so we traveled with only carry-on luggage. Since all of my camera gear (I will go over that next) pretty much took up my carry-on luggage and personal item, my wife and I split another carry-on bag and backpack for everything else we needed. I think I ended up stuffing a sweatshirt into my sister’s luggage as well at the last minute. And this was fine, I did not find myself needing anything I didn’t bring. It is actually pretty amazing how few things you actually NEED. As I mentioned, we did bring rain jackets, bug nets, we both had zip up hoodies, of course undergarments/socks, a couple changes of shirts and pants and a few bathroom essentials. And we still had room for some snacks and a few other personal items.

For my camera gear I brought my small ThinkTank Backstory 13 backpack I have been using and have mentioned in some of my other blogs as my personal item. I had my Canon R5 and Canon RF 100-500 L lens in there along with my Canon RF 24-105 L lens. I also had my extra batteries, memory cards, lens clothes, my GoPro 11 (and extra battery) and a few other accessories in there. And then I brought my big Canon 600 F4 L version 2 lens, my 2nd Canon R5 body (with the battery grip) and my larger tripod and gimbal head in my Tamrac bag as my carry-on. I don’t think I have talked about that bag before. I was also able to stuff my rain jacket, lightweight hat/gloves, and bug net into that case. It acted as some extra padding as well, which was good.

With hindsight being 20/20 I am not sure I really needed to bring my big 600mm lens. You can’t beat the quality of it, but in all honesty there were only a few times I really needed it. When you are at the falls for example, a 600mm lens is too much, except for some really tight shots. I may have been better served to have saved that space for some other options. Maybe my 70-200 2.8 for example? It certainly would have been easier to get through the airports not carrying the big stuff. But with that said, if the salmon had been running better and I had a chance to get the iconic bear catching a salmon in its mouth on the falls shot, I might have wanted it for that. Spoiler alert, I did not get that shot. As it was, 90% of the time I had my R5 (no battery grip) and the 100-500 on. Which was nicer to walk around with anyways since we were putting on so many miles everyday. With the clouds and rain most of the time there were not very many opportunities to break out the wider 24-105 either. I think there was one afternoon and a few hours on our last day when I did get it out to finally get a couple wider shots. But I guess there is the old adage about it being better to have something and not need it, than not having it and needing it. So who’s to say.

Our last view of the beach at Brooks Camp, including the water taxi and all of the float planes. We actually left on the silver plane just coming into dock in the background.

After our awesome few days in Katmai we boarded our float plane and took off back to King Salmon. The sun was actually out on our flight back to King Salmon so we could finally see and enjoy some of the landscape surrounding the park. And that ended our time in Katmai National Park. After that it was flights home and back to reality. I took a lot of video footage on this trip as well, but it might be a while before I get that put together. If you are interested, please check back on this blog as I will update it if I get it posted, or keep an eye out on my YouTube channel for it.

I have been asked several times if I was ever scared of the bears, and the honest answer is no. Of course your heart jumps a beat when you have an unusually close encounter with a bear, like we did on our first day with the mother and three cubs coming down the road right in front of us. But if you follow the guidelines they teach you in “bear school” the bears are very tolerant of having people around. You still have to do your part to not have food around and give the bears some space, but I always felt comfortable around the bears. The situation in Katmai is very unique however, and you should not expect that kind of behavior from bears anywhere else in the world.

(Edit from March 3, 2024)

I was finally able to put together a video from our trip and I posted it on my YouTube channel. It is posted below. It is a fairly long video, but I wanted to make sure I covered most aspects of our trip. I may do shorter, more focused videos in the future. I will try make a note of that if it happens. I have also added an additional gallery of photographs as I have gone back and given a second look at things since my original post, and found a few more images that I liked. As always, you can select each image for a larger view.

A video documenting our trip to Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park.

Banff National Park

Joshua Rutledge June 7, 2023

Over Memorial Day Weekend my wife and I spent a couple of days up in Banff National Park. We were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. I had not been there since I was kid, and honestly after being there again, I didn’t remember much of it at all. So either my memory has faded or maybe things have changed a bit since I was there last. I really only had some vague memories of Lake Louise and a little bit of the hike in Johnston Canyon. And really I only remember the metal railing and how part of the trail is constructed into the cliffs. I don’t remember anything about the falls or the hike itself from back then. But I will get to all of that.

We drove north up through the port of Sweet Grass, onto Lethbridge (with a Tim Hortons stop of course), skirted around Calgary, we had to take a bit of a detour due to construction and eventually ended up in the town of Banff, which is inside Banff National Park.

I think we got there about 3:30 in the afternoon, so by the time we checked into our hotel and got settled a bit, there was not a lot of time to kill before we wandered around the town a bit and found some dinner. We ended up eating at a little British inspired pub, it was good. There were a lot of interesting choices as far as dining goes in Banff to choose from, but I guess we were feeling a little nostalgic for our trip to the UK last summer.

After dinner we took a little drive around and just took in a few of the sites closest to the town of Banff. We took the Tunnel Mountain Drive and went by the Hoodoo’s viewing area. We then went and drove the loop that included Lake Minnewanka, Two Jake Lake, Johnson Lake and the Cascade Ponds. It was a bit smokey from all of the fires, but it was not too bad. With sunset approaching, we headed back to town and did a little more walking around. We ended up getting a beaver tail (fry bread with sweet toppings) at one of the shops. It was very good.

The view from the hoodoo trail.

A close look at some of the hoodoos.

Bull elk on the Tunnel Mountain road.

View of the docks and boat launch at Lake Minnewanka.

A raven near Lake Minnewanka.

Big horn sheep ewes and lambs near Lake Minnewanka.

Another view of the big horn sheep.

Two Jack Lake.

Another view of Two Jack Lake.

A view at the Cascade Ponds.

I liked this bridge at Cascade Ponds.

Reflection of the mountains at Cascade Ponds.

Canada goose at the Cascade Ponds.

The next morning we got up and took a bus to Johnston Canyon for a hike. We had been told parking could be difficult so we decided to take a bus. We were still early enough in the season that it was not an issue when we got there, we would have been fine to drive ourselves. But the parking lots were full by the time we left. We hiked as far as the overlook for the Upper Falls. If you keep going you can go up to the Ink Pots, but since we had more we wanted to do that day, we decided the Upper Falls was probably far enough. Maybe that will be something for next time.

We then headed up to Lake Louise. We also took a bus up to there. Since it was already getting to be later in the day, it was VERY busy up there and we were glad we chose to take the bus. I think if we had gone there first thing in the morning it probably would have been ok. We spent a little bit of time getting our pictures at the main walkway between the Fairmont Chalet and the lake. We did not have a lot of time until our return bus ride, so we chose to hike to the end of the lake just to see what that looked like. There were some other hikes that were along the way that would have been fun to take, including a hike to the tea house, but we just didn’t have enough time. It was interesting to look all the way across the lake back to the chalet.

Lake Louise from a little bit around the shoreline.

I really liked this mountain, it just has a lot of colors and textures, plus the color of the water.

Looking back at the Fairmont Chalet from the far end of Lake Louise.

After our hike we jumped back on a bus and headed back to Banff. We then ran out to Vermillion Lakes which are just outside of town. We were hoping to maybe spot some wildlife and just take in the views of the lakes. We did see some muskrats, loons, various ducks and an osprey. We did not see anything larger such as a bear or moose or anything like we had hoped. It was also rather windy out, so the lakes were not very calm. I had seen images with the mountains reflecting in the lakes on a calm day, but unfortunately that wasn’t meant to be.

Mountains in the background at Vermillion Lakes.

My wife out on a dock at Vermillion Lakes.

Osprey perched in an old snag at Vermillion Lakes.

We ended the day by going back into town and taking in a few more places we had not got to yet. We stopped and got an ice cream cone and decided to grab a pizza from a local shop. Both the ice cream and the pizza were excellent. The following morning we got up early to try and find some wildlife so we headed back down closer to the Johnston Canyon area, but we did not end up finding much. We still stopped at a couple of spots to take in the vistas though, including Castle Mountain. After that, we figured it was probably time to get back on the road and get back home to Montana.

The Northern Lights above a local farm north of Great Falls in Central Montana, April 23, 2023. Shot with the Canon R5 with the Canon RF 50mm 1.2 lens.

Second Night of Northern Lights

Joshua Rutledge May 7, 2023

On the evening of April 23, 2023 into the early morning of the 24th, I was able to experience the best viewing of the Northern Lights I have ever seen. I was blown away by the event we experienced in March of 2023 and almost exactly one month later we had a second, even more extraordinary showing.

Much like that last event, the weather forecast was not in my favor. The forecast included a lot of clouds and when I looked out the windows of my house, I was pretty much surrounded by cloudy skies. I decided I would still take a chance and headed north out of town. This time I was better prepared as compared to the event in March, but I did still have a couple of minor issues I will get to later. This time I also made more of an effort to find a better foreground in case the aurora borealis did kick off.

I sat parked for about an hour waiting for the last of the setting sun light to disappear, and I could start to see some clearing to the west in the sky. I could tell the clouds were clearing as I had clearing views of the moon and Venus in the sky. Although there were still occasionally some wispy clouds passing in front of the moon. Eventually I could start to see some clearing to the north and I could start to see some light pillars starting to appear in the test shots I took out of the windows. With that, I felt like it was worth taking a chance and setting up a couple of cameras to see what I could capture. I setup my old Canon 5D IV and my Canon R6 on tripods for time lapses. I still had my Canon R5 to try and do some other shots.

On the old Canon 5D I had my Canon EF 16-35 lens and I used a farm that was somewhat north east of my position to add some visual interest. And on my Canon R6 I had my RF 15-35 lens and I faced that camera looking sort of north west using a nearby power pole as some foreground interest. With my Canon R5 I experimented with different compositions and different lenses. I used my Rokinon 14mm, Canon EF 70-200 2.8 version 3 and RF 50 1.2 lens with the R5.

A single frame from the Canon 5D IV time lapse of the Northern Lights above the farm.

A single frame from the Canon R6 time lapse of the Northern Lights with a power pole, the Moon and Venus.

Not long after I got the two time lapse cameras setup, the sky just blew up and it became so bright it was like someone had turned on a light switch. The storm built until I was surrounded by the lights. I could see lights from east to west, overhead and even some into the south behind me. I really was not able to capture the scene adequately, even with three cameras. It was one of those experiences where the only answer is “You really had to be there” to describe it to someone.

A tighter image of the Northern Lights above a grain elevator using the Canon 70-200 2.8 lens on the Canon R5.

The Northern Lights over the farm using a Rokinon 14mm lens on the Canon R5. The small size of the farm helps give some scale to the lights in the sky.

After a couple of hours viewing the northern lights, it was after midnight and I had to get up to go to work the next morning. There was eventually a little bit of a lull in the activity and I took that as my sign it was time to leave. Overall I was pretty happy with how my time lapses turned out. I was also able to get a few shots with my third camera. The issue I was having with that camera is that I was using a cheap ball head that came with an old tripod. The problem was that the tightening lever on the ball head was not designed to work on the larger base of the tripod I put it on, so I was not able to clamp down the ball head like I wanted to. I either had to leave the ball head slightly loose or I had to actually unscrew the head, tighten it and then screw it back on to the tripod.

You can view the results of the time lapses via this video on my YouTube channel.

Snow geese feeding in a field with the Highwood Mountains in the distance.

A Morning Out and About

Joshua Rutledge April 26, 2023

A couple weeks ago now, I spent the morning out just seeing what I could find. I initially had plans to be out of town that weekend, but winter in Montana does not want to go away this year, so I ended up not going since we had a big snow storm heading into the weekend. I still wanted to get out and do something, so I loaded up some gear and headed north to the Benton Lake NWR.

The morning started kind of slowly. The ice was mostly gone from the ponds, so there were a few ducks and geese around, but not a lot. I was actually hoping to maybe see some short-eared owls as I often see them in the spring out there, but I did not see any this time. I did see one Northern Harrier, but I was not able to get a picture. I did stop and get a few pictures of a horned lark that I was happy with. I also saw some snow geese out in a field, some swallows and a couple of Western Meadowlarks. Eventually I came across a Northern Shrike. I had seen them briefly before in other places, but never out there, and I had never had a chance to photograph one so I was pretty excited to see it.

When I found it, it was flying back and forth between a couple of different trees and it didn’t seem super happy about my driving by. It would never sit still long enough to get any good pictures, so I actually kept going after a couple of minutes of observing it to see what else I could maybe find. After a while of not seeing much else, I drove the loop back and actually parked my truck where I had seen it earlier. My thought was that maybe if I was not moving it would feel more comfortable and would eventually return to the tree. I parked there for a while and waited, and sure enough it did eventually show up. And not only did it just show up, it came back and it had caught a small rodent, I am guessing maybe a mouse. I watched it for a while waiting for it to get into a position where I could get a clear picture, sort of amazed that such a small bird was able to not only catch, but fly with prey that was almost as big as it was.

Northern Shrike resting on a tree branch.

As I watched it for a while, it was kind of maneuvering the caught mouse around between branches and at one point had even dropped it to the ground and had to retrieve it. I finally realized what it was doing. It had found a sharp branch sticking out of a limb, and it was using the stick to repeatedly impale the mouse on it. At the time I was not aware of this behavior so I found it very interesting (and a little disturbing.) After talking to some other birders, I was told this is actually normal behavior for a Northern Shrike, and as a result, sometimes these birds are called “butcher birds.” I assume that maybe by doing this, it makes it easier for the bird to consume its prey, but I don’t actually know that for sure.

Northern Shrike with a mouse impaled on a branch. Click on images for larger view.

Northern Shrike with the bloodied mouse and branch it was using to impale its prey.

Since I didn’t see a lot else this morning, the encounter with the Northern Shrike did kind of save the day. Not that being out in nature is ever not a good time, but it’s that much better when I can come home with a couple of images I am happy with. Sorry for the graphic nature of the pictures, but I thought the interesting behavior was worth sharing.

A Western Meadowlark perched on a fence post.

Greater Sage-Grouse Lek 2023

Joshua Rutledge April 16, 2023

Spring Greater Sage-Grouse

Male Greater Sage-Grouse displaying on the lek.

I had the chance to spend last weekend (4-8/9-2023) with the Greater Sage-Grouse out on their lek in Central Montana. As always, we had an awesome time. There were a little over 40 grouse on the lek which I would say is about average. So that was good to see, being a species of concern, I always worry that some spring I am going to see a decline in their numbers.

The first morning out was fairly cool and we had fairly cloudy skies at sunrise. I am always hoping for at least a little bit of direct sunlight in the morning to help and get some more detailed shots of the birds. We did eventually get a little sun peaking through near the end of the morning, so that was good. We ended up being positioned just a little farther away than I had hoped. While the lek is always in the same general location year to year, where exactly the birds are going to be is always a little bit of a mystery.

Male Greater Sage-Grouse backlit by the morning sun.

The second morning was very dusty on the lek and we had kind of hazy skies, so it made for some interesting conditions to photograph in. I had also positioned myself a little differently on the lek the second morning hoping to get some backlit birds, as I always like that look when it works out. I would say with the conditions being what they were, it was probably a little bit good and a little bit bad.

I walked away with a few pictures I was happy with, but I don’t think I created anything new this year that was better than previous years. If you are new to my blog, you can look back at these older posts from years past for some comparison. Sage Grouse March 2021, Sage Grouse April 2021, and Sage Grouse April 2022.

I was primarily shooting with my Canon R5 with the Canon EF 600mm F4 version 2 lens with and without the Canon 1.4x version 3 teleconverter. I also took a few shots with my Canon R6 and the Canon RF 100-500 lens. Please checkout the gallery below for more of the photos from the weekend.

Displaying Sage Grouse

Sage Grouse Portrait

Fighting on Lek

Tail Details

Fighting Sage Grouse

Backlit Sage-Grouse Tail

Young pronghorn antelope.

Ruffed Grouse

After the first morning out with the sage-grouse I decided to go look for some Ruffed Grouse. Winter has been lingering here in Montana this year, so I was not really able to get into the spots I was hoping to, because the snow was still too deep. I did eventually find a single ruffed grouse, but it was not interested in displaying for me. I am hoping later this spring to maybe get out and try again.

A male sharp-tailed grouse dancing on the lek right before sunrise.

Spring 2023 Sharp-tailed Grouse

Joshua Rutledge April 4, 2023

On April 1, 2023 my wife, my sister and I had the chance to visit a blind again and watch the sharp-tailed grouse out on their lek. As always we had a great time and it is one of my favorite spring activities in Montana. The morning was cool, but not cold for April, but it was fairly overcast and windy. We were probably in the blind for about half an hour when we started to hear the first grouse showing up at the lek. It is always exciting when you start to hear them in the still relative darkness.

We saw about 37 grouse that morning, all males. The numbers and being all males was typical for early April. The hens tend to show up a little later on in the season. The male grouse were spending their time establishing their spots on the lek and trying to keep other males away. There was a fair amount of minor fighting and chasing each other around mixed in with their dancing displays.

I brought my Canon R5 and my Canon R6 camera bodies. I also brought my Canon EF 600MM F4 II lens, my Canon RF 100-500 and my Canon EF 70-200 2.8 III lens. I wanted to make sure I had the ability to get some wider shots while also having the ability to get nice and close with the longer lenses. You never know for sure exactly where the grouse will be, so it’s nice to cover all of your bases. I brought two tripods, my heavier aluminum Manfrotto tripod with a gimbal head I use for my longer lenses and a smaller, lighter, travel tripod I used with the 70-200 lens. I wanted to make sure I could capture some good audio as well, so I brought my Rode Video Mic Pro+ as well.

We watched the grouse for about 2 and a half hours. They stuck around later into the morning than usual, well past 9 AM. It has been my experience in the past that most of the grouse usually leave the lek between 8 and 8:30. I am not sure if it was the cloudy conditions or why they stuck around a little longer than usual. They were also not chased off at all this time from eagles or coyotes as has been the case in the past.

I am trying something a little different this time and I added a gallery below of some pictures from the morning. You should be able to scroll through the reel and click on the thumbnail images for a larger view. There is also a link to a video from the morning from my YouTube channel. I also have another blog post from a couple of years ago about the sharp-tailed grouse for those of you that are interested. Sharp-Tailed Grouse 2021.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse.

Male sharp-tailed grouse doing his dance on the lek.

Male sharp-tailed grouse on the lek.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse fighting for position on the lek.

Two male sharp-tailed grouse still fighting on the lek.

One more of the male sharp-tailed grouse fighting on the lek.

Male sharp-tailed grouse on the lek.

Close up of a male sharp-tailed grouse.

The Northern Lights starting to appear north of Great Falls, March 23, 2023 before it was even dark.

Amazing Northern Lights

Joshua Rutledge March 25, 2023

On the evening of March 23, 2023 I had the chance to view the best showing of the Northern Lights I have ever seen. It is not uncommon to get a glimpse of the Northern Lights on the horizon here in Montana, but this was the first time I had seen them so spectacularly that they were actually overhead and even on occasion extending into the sky to the south behind me.

I have a couple of apps I use to track the Northern Lights, also referred to as the Aurora Borealis, so I knew there was a pretty good chance of a good showing that night, but the clouds were starting to close in so I wasn’t optimistic that I would be able to view them. After thinking about it for a while, and with a little prompting from my wife, I decided to grab some gear and head out anyway (Great Falls, Mt.) I headed out of town to the north and found a spot to park to wait and see what happened. As I was sitting and waiting for dark, there were clouds in almost every direction except for a clearing to the West, so my fears were starting to become true. There was a good view of the crescent moon and Venus in the cloud break, so at least there was something to look at.

A test shot through the windshield of my truck, just to see if anything was happening. When it is still light out, the northern lights are not always visible to the naked eye, but a camera can pick them up. I didn’t even bother trying to focus through the glass, but as you can see, I could still tell there were pillars of light already in the sky, even though it wasn’t dark yet.

As twilight started to fall, I took a quick test shot through the windshield of my truck, and sure enough, I could already start to see some pillars forming in the sky. Since it was not quite dark yet, they were not really visible to the naked eye. I thought at the very least maybe I would be able to get a couple of shots before the clouds completely obscured my view.

Still from my truck, but looking more north and I could see some pillars forming above the clouds.

Last shot I took from the highway (you can see some headlights in the distance) and this is what convinced me it was worth trying to move.

Once darkness started to set in, I was starting to see some activity in the sky to the North East of me. I was parked alongside the highway to start, as I was just kind of waiting to see what would happen, but the cars driving by were very distracting, and it also feels a little bit dangerous with speeding cars so near. So I drove down a little side road just to get off the highway. Unfortunately, I did not put a lot of thought into where I was going. I was just kind of frantic wanting to find a spot to setup. Between the clouds and the fickleness of the aurora, I wasn’t sure how much time I had, so I didn’t want to spend my time finding the best spot and potentially missing the show entirely. So I ended up in a spot where I had power lines overhead that were kind of distracting and not a lot of interest in the foreground. I did my best to try and use one of the power poles to add a little bit of interest to the shots. The photograph at the top of this post was my first test shot from the location so it wasn’t even dark yet.

As I was fumbling around in the dark I quickly realized that in my half-hearted attempt leaving the house, I had forgotten a lot of equipment I would have liked to have with me. I had recently cleaned a bunch of things out of my camera bag as well, since I was helping with a project at work I didn’t want to be hauling a lot of extra stuff back and forth. I found that I only had one Arca-Swiss plate for mounting my cameras on a tripod. I knew I wanted to have at least two cameras going (and ideally a third, which I also forgot was not in my bag anymore) so that was a problem. I eventually remembered I keep an old cheap tripod in my truck for photographic emergencies such as this. Of course, when I got it out I found that it was actually broken. Since it bounces around in my truck, who knows when that might have happened. And also of course, with it being a cheap tripod, it had its own style of mounting plate that was not Arca-Swiss compatible. Luckily I found that if I loosened the jaws on my ball head as far as they would go I could cram the cheap plate (since it was plastic) into the metal jaws of the Arca-Swiss mount and make it work. So then I was able to have two cameras going, since I knew I wanted to have at least one dedicated to a time lapse. With northern lights photography, you are usually working with shutter speeds too slow to hand hold, so a tripod is a must. I believe for most of the shots I was working between about 2 seconds and 5 seconds of shutter speed. I think my ISO was between about 1600 and 3200 and I kept both lenses wide open at an aperture of 2.8.

Another shot of the Northern Lights. Even with a 14mm lens, I could still not capture the whole scene as the lights were going so high into the sky and all along the horizon.

I was shooting with my Canon R5 with the Canon RF 15-35 2.8 lens and then I had my Canon R6 with a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 all manual lens setup as my dedicated time lapse rig. I had my Canon RF 50mm 1.2 lens along and I was hoping to try and get some shots with it, but I just didn’t have anything interesting enough to really use that lens for. I needed a subject of some kind to do a more tight in shot with that lens. So I elected to just stay wide and take in as much of the scene as I could. Even with the wide 14mm lens, I still could not take in the whole scene. This may be one of the few times when I wish I had something even wider than 14mm. Typically when this happens I would just create a panorama, but with a moving subject such as the Northern Lights, that’s not really possible.

I tried incorporating a nearby power pole into the shot, just to add at least a little bit of foreground interest.

Eventually the clouds did start to encroach more, and it was also getting late and I had to get up for work the next day, so I had to head home. If it had been a weekend I probably would have stayed out a bit longer just because it was so amazing. Despite my lack of gear and other mishaps, I still had a great time. And of course, lessons were learned about being prepared, and I also need to do some pre-scouting so if I get into this situation again, I will have a designated spot picked out to be setup at. I think the time lapse I took turned out pretty good and I have a link to my YouTube channel for that below.

A bison fighting through the snow in Yellowstone National Park. Please remember you can always click on the images for a larger view depending on your device.

Winter in Yellowstone National Park

Joshua Rutledge February 20, 2023

On February 18, 2023 my sister Melissa and I decided to take a quick trip down to Yellowstone National Park for the day. Visiting the park in the winter is always fun, since the crowds are smaller and the winter snow gives everything a little bit different look and feel than during the warmer summer months. While you most likely will not see bears during the winter (although it is not impossible) other wildlife such as wolves and coyotes are more visible this time of year. The park is about a 3 hour drive, but with the days starting to get longer now, it is possible to spend a pretty full day in the park and still get back home at a reasonable time. Unless you are booking a trip by snow-coach, there are only limited places in the park you can go anyway, so you don’t necessarily need as much time as you would during the summer to explore. With that said, there are opportunities for cross country skiing and snowshoeing (and the aforementioned snow coaches) if you do want to access more locations.

As we approached the north entrance to the park, we started to see a lot of bison and elk out on the landscape outside of the park around Gardiner, MT. It is common to see some small herds of elk and bison outside of the park, but this year was the most I think I had ever seen. I believe the reason for this was because the snow conditions inside of the park forced animals to find easier grazing elsewhere. We did still see a lot of elk and bison inside of the park as well, but it was obvious they were having to fight through the snow a lot harder.

A large bull elk that still has his antlers inside the town of Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park.

With the historic flooding last spring that washed out the main road from Gardiner to Mammoth, you now have to take an alternative route from the north entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs. The main hotel in Mammoth was under construction this winter, so it was not open for tourists to stay. It appeared as though the snow-coaches were still departing from there however. We saw a few elk and bison roaming around inside the town-site of Mammoth which is fairly typical.

A bison using its large head as a shovel to move the snow looking for something to eat.

From there we headed to the Lamar Valley to see what we could find. We found a lot of bison and a few elk along the drive to the valley. Going down the valley we saw several coyotes and a lot more elk and bison, a lone bull moose and there were some American dippers along the river. We were hoping to maybe find some wolves, bighorn sheep or otters, but unfortunately we did not find any of those. We talked to a tour guide that had spotted a lone wolf a long ways off earlier in the morning, but that was all. We also stopped to look at a bear den where a black bear was just visible inside of the den. I tried to take some pictures, but the den was too dark and there were too many slow flakes in the air so it obscured the bear in the pictures I took. We drove almost all the way to Cooke City and then turned around and came back. On the drive back we found a couple more coyotes and a red fox. After almost returning to Gardiner on the way back out of the park, we did finally spot a few bighorn sheep far off in the distance.

A coyote looking a little suspicious in the snow.

An American dipper feeding by the river, not technically a great picture, but I wanted to include it for documentation.

One of the coyotes we saw had been struggling through the snow and eventually it laid down not too far off the road so we were able to stop and get quite a few pictures. I was using my Canon R5 with the Canon 600mm F4 version II with the EF-RF adapter. With all of the snow in the park, I was usually using between 1.5 and 2 stops of compensation to get the correct exposure. We were also able to stop for a few minutes and watch the red fox as well. I was photographing it with the same setup. For some of the larger animals in the park, when the 600mm was not necessary, I was using my Canon R6 with the Canon RF 100-500 lens. I find that the Canon 100-500 does a very good job with motion stabilization in video mode, so I have actually come to prefer that lens for video even over my 600mm F4 when possible. I don’t think the older Canon EF 600mm lens works quite as well stabilizing with the new IBIS on the Canon R5/R6. So in some instances I did switch over to the R6, 100-500 combo to grab some video clips after I was done getting still with the 600mm.

A coyote looking back at the camera while it was resting.

A coyote laying its head down for a minute resting.

A coyote yawning, so you can see its teeth.

A red fox listening to hear if it can detect anything under the snow.

Even though we did not spot any wolves or more exotic sightings in the park, it was still a fun day. For anyone that has not visited Yellowstone in the winter, I would highly recommend it.

New Years!

Joshua Rutledge December 31, 2022

Happy New Year!

The mountains and the beach at Kaui in Hawaii. — A view of the “Puff the Magic Dragon” mountain formation and the beach in Kauai, Hawaii.

It’s the end of another year and I must say, this has been a pretty great year for photography. After a couple of years of not being able to travel due to the pandemic, we were able to make up for some lost time. Besides some local trips and my normal seasonal opportunities (feel free to scroll through my other blog posts for the highlights from this year), I had the new experiences of traveling to and photographing in the British Isles and I also recently returned from a trip to Hawaii.

My wife Denise and I doing a little selfie on the GoPro while snorkeling in the Big Island, Hawaii.

Hawaii was pretty awesome. Much like the British Isles, my trip to Hawaii was a long overdue family vacation that had been delayed for almost 3 years because of the pandemic. Since it was a family trip, I treated it much like the British Isles trip and just tried to work some photography in as I could. My kit consisted of pretty much the same items I brought to the British Isles. I found it to be a pretty workable solution again, with of course some of the compromises I mentioned in my previous blog post. On this trip however, I did find more use for my GoPro Hero 8, especially when we did some snorkeling.

Diamon Head in the distance from Waikiki Beach. — Diamond Head in the background from Waikiki Beach in front of the Hale Koa Resort.

We started our Hawaiian vacation by flying into Honolulu. Since we had veterans in the family traveling with us, we were able to stay a few nights at the Hale Koa Resort. The resort is next door to the Hilton Hawaiian Resort, so there are a lot of things in the immediate area and of course Waikiki Beach. We had a good view of Diamond Head from the beach as well. While we were on O’ahu we went to see Pearl Harbor and did the boat tour out to the Arizona Memorial. We did not have enough time to do the tour of the Missouri battleship or the Bowfin Submarine, but we were able to see them from a distance. We also were able to attend a luau at Paradise Cove. Of course the luau was a bit touristy, but it was still a lot of fun and the food was great. This was my first luau, so I do not have any basis for comparison, but others that we were traveling with us said that this one was one of the best they had been to.

A view from the shuttle boat of the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

After a few days in Honolulu we boarded a cruise ship to visit some of the other islands. While I know traveling by cruise ship can be a bit controversial, due to the environmental concerns and etc, we did find it to be a pretty convenient way to visit the islands. It was nice to not have to arrange travel between the islands or accommodations once we were there. Now that we have visited Hawaii, if we are ever able to go back, we will know what to visit again and what we could probably skip. So it was a good way to get a pretty good overview of the major Hawaiian destinations. The cruise itinerary that we did in Hawaii is a little different than other cruises since the ship there is the only one registered in the United States, so that is something to be aware of. If you have any questions about the cruise experience itself, feel free to contact me.

A green sea turtle resting on a Maui beach.

We were very lucky in the timing of our trip, as we were there when Mauna Loa finally decided to erupt again after over 30 years of being dormant. We were actually able to see the eruptions from out at sea as we were cruising into Hilo. It was pretty spectacular. We were also able to get a distant view from Volcanoes National Park. Unfortunately because of the eruption, parts of the park were closed. But given the chance to see the eruption, I didn’t feel too bad that we were not able to see all of the park.

Mauna Loa volcanoe. — Mauna Loa volcano erupting as seen from out at sea near Hilo.

Besides Oahu and the Big Island, we were also able to visit Kauai and Maui and while not visiting the actual islands, we were to view some of the other islands, such as Moloka’i from a distance. I will try to write more detailed blog entries from all of our stops when I get time, but I just wanted to post a brief overview, since it has been a while since I have had a new blog entry.

Looking out of sea cave. — Looking out at the ocean from inside of a lave tube sea cave on the black beaches of Waianapanapa State Park in Maui.

Happy New Year everyone! I can’t wait to share more of my adventures with you this coming year. I already have a few new exciting things planned for later this year. I am also hoping to go back and revisit some of my trips from this year and create posts about some of the locations. So keep checking back for those!

Elk through the rain for kind of a moody shot.

Elk Rut October 2022

Joshua Rutledge October 25, 2022

I had a chance to visit the Slippery Ann elk viewing area on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge area again earlier this October. It is always a good time along the Missouri River in Central Montana. Typically I try to make the trip a little earlier in the season, but this was an unusually hot and dry fall so I did not figure the elk would be all that active anyway. From visiting with others, and from personal observation, it does appear the elk rut was a little later this year and maybe not quite as intense. The day that I finally decided to visit it was actually a cool rainy day. I decided to switch things up a bit and I first visited the area in the morning. This was nice as there were less people around and the elk were fairly active. Unfortunately it started to rain pretty good not long after we got there. I still had the chance to get a few photos and some video before it got too bad. We spent the rest of the morning mostly just observing the elk from inside of the car.

Not the biggest bull elk, but he had interesting antlers and was able to maintain a pretty good group of cows.

The same bull, but a wider full body view.

Since the weather was so wet, the roads in the area were not very good, so rather than risking getting stuck anywhere, we decided to just head back home. If it had been a nicer day we probably would have spent some time looking around for some other photographic opportunities.

A big bull elk with his cows later in the afternoon.

More of an environmental shot as I wanted to include some of the fall foliage and set the scene.

By the afternoon the weather had improved in town, so we decided to head back out for the evening show hoping the weather was better out there too. Being the afternoon, the crowds were much bigger than they were in the morning, but with it still being a little wet and later in the season the crowds were slightly smaller than they probably would have been otherwise. The evening weather was similar to the morning. There were periods when the rain would let up a bit and things would improve, but then it would start raining pretty hard again. I did not come away with any particularly interesting photographs, but it was still a good time. With the bad weather I was not really able to set up my tripod or microphones how I would have liked, so my video ended up being a little less professional then I would have liked, but I still posted it for viewing if you want to take a look below.

If you want more information about the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge I have a page linked here on my website. You may also be interested in checking out my previous blogs from last year.

https://www.joshrutledgephotography.com/blog/last-trip-of-the-season

https://www.joshrutledgephotography.com/blog/labor-day-weekend-elk

Stonehenge, unfortunately it was a bright, blue sky day so there was not a lot of drama in the scene. I was able to get a shot with no fellow tourists in it though.

The British Isles

Joshua Rutledge August 30, 2022

I recently returned from a two week trip around the British Isles. It was an amazing trip. We saw areas around London, Guernsey, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands and many other locations in between. We had so many stops it would be almost impossible to list them all. I would love to write blogs about all of the locations, but with things being so busy at my day job, I don’t really have time for that right now. Maybe later this fall/winter when I have more time in doors I can sit down and do some longer posts from the various locations. Leave a comment below if there is something you are most interested in hearing about. Hopefully my memory will not have faded by then. I think this post is going to be more of a gear overview and some insight into the photography aspects of the trip. I don’t usually write a lot of posts about gear, but this time it seems appropriate. While this was not actually a photography trip (it was a family vacation) I still did my best to get as much photography in as I could. Of course compromises were made since it was a vacation for everyone; I was not always able to optimize the photographic opportunities, but I did my best.

Kitchener Memorial above the cliffs on the Orkney Islands, Scotland.

While planning for the trip I REALLY struggled with what equipment to bring (or maybe harder yet, what NOT to bring.) With so much travel involved, small planes, large planes, ships, small boats, trains, cars, buses and etc, I knew I had to keep my kit as light and portable as possible. That immediately eliminated any thoughts of bringing things like tripods or larger lenses such as my 600mm F4. Knowing I was also going to be carrying whatever I brought around on my back most of the time, meant I also needed a good backpack and needed to keep the weight to a minimum.

In the end I settled on only bringing just two lenses and two camera bodies. I also purchased a new smaller backpack for the trip as well. Besides being smaller, the backpack was also built with security in mind, since I was concerned about the safety of my gear while traveling. In my kit I ended up with my Canon RF 24-105 L F4 lens, the Canon RF 100-500 L lens, my Canon R5 as my main camera body and a Canon R6 as my backup body. I also brought along 2 sets of spare batteries and multiple memory cards, both CF-Express and SD. I also had my Peak Designs Capture Clip attached to my backpack strap and plates on both cameras. Typically I like to shoot with a battery grip on my cameras, but I left them at home to save weight and space. This did mean I felt like I was having to change out batteries a lot faster than I am used to. The backpack I chose for the trip was a ThinkTank Backstory 13. I also had my GoPro Hero 8 Black with me, but I found I did not use it very often. I did do a test run of basically this exact kit when we did our Our Lake hike I talked about in my previous blog. So I did have some idea how everything was going to work.

An idea of the layout of my camera bag, with my two lenses, two bodies and accessories. I used the rain cover (blue pouch) as kind of a buffer between things.

My Peak Designs Capture clip attached the strap on my camera bag.

The idea of only having two lenses along did concern me. I was not sure if I would be able to do everything I wanted. My biggest concerns were being able to go wider than 24mm (I would have liked to have had my 16-35mm a few times) and I was also concerned about only having an F4 lens and not having something a little faster like most of my F2.8 lenses. This ended up being less of an issue for me, although there were a few times another stop of light would have been nice. I knew the Canon 24-105 was going to be a compromise, but when considering my options it also seemed like the most versatile choice. In the end, I was very happy with the lens. I had only purchased the lens this spring, so I had not had a lot of time to try it out. The 24-105 is a lens I like to use for video. I have the older EF version and have used that for many years on my DSLRs, but I wanted the RF version so I did not need to bring any extra adapters. I have not done a side by side comparison, but it seems to me the RF version is better than the old EF version so I think it was a good investment. I really only used my old EF 24-105 as a video lens as I mentioned, since I would normally choose a different lens for photography. I also picked up the Canon RF 100-500 this spring which I have mentioned in other posts. That lens was also purchased to try and have something that was the native RF mount and I also like the idea of having the extra 100mm’s over my old Canon 100-400mm version 2. I am still not sure I like the 100-500 as much as my old 100-400. I did occasionally have some focusing issues with the 100-500 lens. I am guessing most of that is just because of the slower aperture on it. I was still able to get some good shots, but I have not been blown away by the lens so far. But as I said, it does give me some extra reach and does not require any extra adapters, so I think it was still the right choice for this trip.

A puffin getting ready to take flight from the cliffs in the Shetland Islands, Scotland.

Overall I was happy with my backpack. It is on the smaller side, but that was intentional. I like that the main zipper compartment is on the inside (against your back) so I was less worried about security when we were in crowds. It is also nice when you need to take your pack off, you can lay it down in the dirt or wet and when you put your pack back on, the dirty side is not against your back. The pack comes with a rain cover, but we had unseasonably hot/dry weather most of the time, so I never needed to use it. The one day we did have significant rain, I still did not have any issues and I did not bother putting on the cover. I also enjoyed having my Peak Design Capture clip on it as well. It was very handy to sometimes be able to clip my camera on and have my hands free. I was a little self-conscious about having my camera so visible when we were in busier areas, so sometimes I did stop and put it back into my pack just to not draw attention. But when we were in more remote areas, I used it a lot. I did notice that if I wore my camera on my pack strap for extended periods of time, it did start to get kind of sore on that shoulder. I was able to adjust my straps and make sure I kept the weight balanced in my pack as much as possible and that did help.

I used my Canon R5 more than 90% of the time. I really only used my Canon R6 when I was actively going back and forth between a wider shot and a longer telephoto composition. I left my 24-105 on my camera 90% of the time too. I only got out the 100-500 when I had some wildlife shots or if there was a subject like a lighthouse or something farther out I wanted to bring in closer. I was having some issues with my R6 that further reduced me wanting to use it. I was getting some memory card read issues and I kept having to reboot the camera until the error went away. This never happened while using the camera at home. And since being back I have not had it either (although I have not used it a lot since being home yet.) But it was consistently happening over there. I don’t know if it was a memory card or the camera itself. The camera has dual memory card slots and I was using cards in both slots, so that makes it a little harder to troubleshoot. My pictures/videos were all fine on the memory cards though, so that was good. I will have to do some more experimenting if I am able to recreate the problem. I am hoping maybe it was just a bad memory card, that would be easier to resolve than an issue with the camera itself.

Hopefully that gives you a little overview of my setup and my thoughts about things. I certainly do not consider myself a “travel photographer,” but I was traveling and doing photography so I guess take my suggestions for what they are. This blog is already getting kind of long, so I guess I will end it here. If you have any questions about the gear I used or particular places we visited, feel free to reach out. And hopefully I will be posting more detailed blogs about the trip as I get more time. Check back to see those posts and hopefully some others now that we are getting into the fall months.

Forest Service sign out on the fence going into the cabin.

Our Lake (Hidden Lake) July, 2022

Joshua Rutledge July 25, 2022

I recently went on a quick trip with my wife and my sister up to a Forest Service cabin west of Choteau, Montana on the border of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We went to the cabin with the intention of hiking to Our Lake, also known as Hidden Lake, as well as just spending some time in the mountains. We had a great time. Since I knew we were going to be doing a lot of hiking, I really paired down my camera gear and only brought with me my Canon RF 100-500 and my Canon RF 24-105 in my camera bag along with my Canon R5 and R6 bodies. I was also using it as an opportunity to test out a new, small, Think Tank BackStory 13 camera bag I bought for another upcoming trip. I did throw a couple of wide angle lenses into my regular bag in case I got the chance to do some astrophotography. I also threw in one tripod and my ball head.

We arrived at the cabin a little after 1 PM. Official check in time was 2PM, but since we didn’t see anyone around and the gate was locked, we assumed they had already left so we went ahead and got our stuff moved in. My sister and I had stayed at the cabin previously a few years ago, when we were also planning on doing the hike, so we already knew what to expect. It is a fairly rustic cabin, but it was still nice.

Looking up the valley from the cabin into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. My sister is sitting around the campfire.

We did some dutch oven cooking and had a good time just hanging around that afternoon. After dinner we decided we would try to do a little fishing. That was a total bust. We never even saw a single fish. I have to assume there are some fish in the river there, but we never saw anything. We also did a little driving around, including the Cave Mountain area, and around the Teton Pass Ski area. You could not actually go to the ski area as the gate was locked. We did see a lot of wild flowers, deer, squirrels, snowshoe hares and even two black bears. Of course I didn't get pictures of either of them. Once we got back to the cabin we had a campfire and relaxed until dark. I stayed up a little while as I wanted to set up a time lapse of the Milky Way. I knew the moon would eventually be rising, but I was hoping maybe I could still get enough frames in for a time lapse before that happened. As it turns out, that did not work out. I got a late start as I was having issues trying to get my lens to talk to my Canon R6. I had my 14mm 2.8 Rokinon lens, which is one of my favorite astro lenses (and it’s cheap) but it is a completely manual lens. This was the first time trying it on my Canon R6 however, and it just didn’t want to work. I knew there had to be a setting, and I even kind of knew what it probably was, but I couldn’t find it in the menu system… So finally I gave up and put on my old Canon EF 16-35 2.8 version 3 lens with the EF to RF adapter. Once I got home I did solve the issue. It was in the menu under an area that didn’t make sense to me, so I missed it while I was looking in the field. Oh well, I have it fixed now. I was still able to get a series of frames before the moon came up, but not enough for a proper time lapse.

I kept hearing the sound of an owl while we were sitting around the cabin. My hunch was it was a screech owl but I was not 100% sure. I kept looking around in the trees and I could just never find it. Finally I looked up into the eaves on the back of the cabin and there it was. It was a Western Screech-Owl. With my paired down camera kit, I did not have my 70-200 2.8 with me, which would have been my best choice. The owl was perch where it was very dark under the eaves so the 2.8 aperture would have been nice. My other lenses were too short, as I did not want to scare it. I settled on my Canon 100-500, but with the slow aperture of that lens, even at 1/50th of a second I was still at ISO 12800. I went ahead and took the picture, but the quality is not great.

The next morning we got up early, broke camp and headed for the trailhead. I think after everything we got there about 8 AM. Which honestly was already a little late in the morning. As it turns out, we picked the hottest day of the year for our hike. It was 102 back in town, I don’t know what it was in the mountains, certainly cooler than that, but still very hot for a hike. This time we made it all the way to the lake. Our previous attempt a couple of years ago was in June and we made it probably ¾ of the way to the lake and then hit heavy snow and we were not able to get through and had to turn around. So it was nice to finally make it there. The hike is about 3 and a half miles in. So a little over 7 miles round trip. It is pretty much uphill the whole way going in. The trail consists of a lot of switchbacks however, so the trail was never super steep, except for the last little bit up to the lake itself. We were still pretty hot and tired by the time we got back to the vehicle though.