Photography, Travel

Winter on the Island

How many photos of bison can one take in one weekend?  My last post “Don’t Pet the Fluffy Bison” was about the bison that inhabit Antelope Island in Utah.  I went there in January to photograph these big animals.  But after two days of pictures, I decided to take a few photos of the island’s geography in its winter coat.

If you saw my post about Antelope Island back in January, you’ll know that this little island is a geologic treasure. A winter coating of snow really puts a different take on the island’s feel.

This is looking westward from the island out across the Great Salt Lake toward the mountains on the far western shore. I liked the subtle colors of winter sky.
I took this one across the road from where I had been photographing a lot of the bison that Saturday morning. It looks like some little animal peed in the snow down on the lower left. (Remember Frank Zappa’s advice – don’t eat that yellow snow.)
This road is on the east side of the island heading generally south. Here I am looking southwest toward the main peaks of Antelope Island.

As the Saturday progressed, the sky became darker by the hour. I had traveled across the island hoping to find the main herd of bison, and I did see them. But the light was wrong for good photos, so I shifted my focus to the rocks and hills to the west of the road.

I saw these interesting rocks up the hills from the road near the eastern side of the island, and decided to hike up and see what was up there.

I think it ended up being about a 1 mile hike up the hills, and the snow was deeper than it looked like from the road. I was quite happy that I had my winter boots with the built-in gaiters to stay dry. This area was quite fascinating, but the photographing was a bit challenging. Sometimes it just hard to figure out how to convey what I saw then try to make that into a special image.

A much closer view of the rock formation. You can see how much the heat of the sun on the southward slope has melted the snow.
As you can see the northern sky was really getting a bit unfriendly looking. But the contrast of the rocks, the brush and the sky was quite interesting.
If you look closely in the foreground, you’ll see numerous small animal tracks up here in rocks away from the road. I definitely saw some coyote tracks and perhaps some rabbits – probably jack rabbits. There are bobcat on the island, but I wasn’t sure any of these were bobcats as cat tracks usually are wider than long and without the toenail/claw marks at the front.

That was such a fun weekend – seeing so many bison right up close, and then the lousy weather kept the crowds away. The evenings were really quiet and peaceful, and what a view I had looking out over the lake to the west.

This is sunset looking west from my campsite. Couldn’t really complain about the scenery.

I must apologize the long delay between posts. This time of year I get quite busy in my practice, so there hasn’t been much free time to work on this blog. So, I appreciate your patience and dedication.

Here’s a teaser for my next post – I did manage to get away from the office for a week in mid March.

I am not going to tell you where this is just yet. You’ll just have to wait…

Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope everyone is enjoying life!

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