Here is a shot of a small herd of Elk grazing in the West Horseshoe Park area during a sunset, on January 22, 2012. I took my son sledding up at the Hidden Valley area of the park earlier in the afternoon...lots of fun, despite chilly temps in the 20's F, 40 mph gusts, and a hint of snow to the west. A good afternoon of frozen cheeks, and lifelong memories. Anyways, we were heading around the park looking for some venues for a nice sunset scene, Moraine Park, Alluvial Fan area, Many Parks Curve, etc...and came back to this area after saying "what the heck, lets go home" as most areas were obscured by clouds. We were driving back to the North Park entrance and saw a car pulled over, usually a tell tale sign there is "something". We saw the orange clouds breaking and an elk herd grazing...It was frick'n windy, very cold and was in no mood to hop out of my warm Jeep. I decided to take a few shots of the herd & some of the oranges produced on the clouds over the divide. I tried to get the elk on the far left attention as to turn looking at me...no dice. Anyways, this shot was hand held using a Nikon D700 from my Jeep. Comments welcomed, as we are now getting slammed with 18" of fresh snow! Later.
Dejan, it's a super light, and, in regards of cold, I know exactly what you are talking about.
You can post it in both forums, to have the wildlife appreciated
That's an excellent shot. Looks like a group of bulls wintering together. Also shows how mild our Winter has been so far. That area should be under ten feet of snow right now.
Very nice image Dejan. The rolling cloud in the background really adds to it, and the elk are nicely spaced out also. It's wierd about the snow, although I heard you were dumped on yesterday!
ckcarr wrote:
Very nice image Dejan. The rolling cloud in the background really adds to it, and the elk are nicely spaced out also. It's wierd about the snow, although I heard you were dumped on yesterday!
Craig,
This winter has been upside down. The mountains are struggling for snow pack, and we along the front range got a major dumping, especially the foothills....up to 4 feet in some places 1/2 hrs from here! RMNP has been pretty bare...not sure what they got Friday / Sat...Will find out Monday.
dalongfellow wrote:
Excellent image, Dejan. I really like the light on the clouds--puts this one over the top for me. Here's hoping RMNP gets more snow.
Dave
Thanks Dave! The areas at RMNP above 10,000 ft usually get a continuous feeding of snow, such as Bear Lake, Dream Lake, and especially Emerald Lake, which is way up there and one of my favorite areas to get back into this winter. The lower areas around 7-9,000 ft tend to be scarce (like you see) and windblown.
