The first night, there was not a cloud in the sky, and with no moon, I was anxious to try shooting some star trails over Cloud Peak Reservoir. Tom wanted to do some fishing, so I convinced him to stay after dark with me so I wouldn't have to go the three miles back to camp by myself! While he fished, I hiked downstream to Flat Iron Lake, hoping to catch a moose in the lake.
By the time I made it back up to Cloud Peak Reservoir, it was about 8:00 PM, and night was starting to set in. I really wanted to get some star trails over Cloud Peak; unfortunately, that was the brightest part of the sky, and the last part for stars to show up! As we stood there on the dam and the darkness settled in around us, it was incredible watching sky slowly fill with stars! Away from town lights at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, it is amazing how clear that sky is! We sat in the dark and watched the stars and listened to the coyotes for about an hour while my camera did its thing. By then, with both us freezing, and an extremely rough ride ahead of us on the dark trail to get back to camp, we called it a night and headed back to camp and our warm sleeping bags!
I didn't quite get the results I wanted, but it was my first attempt and a very short exposure due to the cold, so hopefully next time I will do better!
Saturday Tom wanted to hike (I should say climb) into South Piney Lakes, but I didn't figure I would find any moose there, so I went the other way and hiked into Frying Pan Lake, hoping to run into a bull moose.
Didn't find any moose today, but I found out why when I got back to camp. Tom had ran into two other guys at Cloud Peak Reservoir when he got back down from South Piney Lakes. They told him they had seen my 4-wheeler parked at the top of the trail to Frying Pan and there was a cow moose and her calf about 20 feet from it! Guess I should have just taken a nap on my 4-wheeler for the afternoon!
After I got back to camp and had some dinner, I took my camera out to look for the moose that had been so far giving me the slip. Once again, I didn't find the moose, but found a cute little pika!
Our last day on the mountain, we hiked to "Wally Park", where my Dad used spend hours upon hours sitting in a pile of rocks during elk season, for as many years as I can remember. He was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, so he would go to his "chair" in his rockpile to hunt. Everyone knew where Wally Park was and would stop by and visit and drink coffee with him. Not sure how much hunting actually went on, but my Dad sure looked forward to elk season every year!
My entire Big Horn Mountains photo gallery can be viewed at Thompson Photography. All of the images in the gallery are available in prints as well as a wide variety of gift items.
No comments:
Post a Comment