One of the great things about going to Lake Clark National Park to photograph brown bears, is that most years we photograph so many different bears and situations that the days blend together. It is hard to explain just how many opportunities we get and how much we shoot if you haven’t been before. Each day provides ample opportunities and is so much fun! This year was another one of those years and provided some great moments!

As many times as I have been to Lake Clark, I still get just as excited each year when flying in! The whole trip is an amazing experience and one I look forward to each year! Upon landing on the beach, we are often greeted by bears nearby and that gets the group really excited to be there! Our very first time out in the field also got the trip off to a great start. We were fortunate to find a mother and 2 new cubs, spring cubs, in the meadow eating grass. After a while, a couple of bears came out of the woods nearby and the mom did not like that. She decided to run away from the bears, and came pretty close to the group as she was running away. What a way to start off the trip by seeing nature play out right in front of us and up close!

Everyone wants to see cubs, and I don’t blame them as they are so much fun to watch and photograph. Many years this area has cubs, and this year the mom with 2 spring cubs was around daily and so much fun when we did find them and get to photograph them. The cubs were new to the area when we got there, and I could tell they were still learning about their new world. Seeing them change from the time we got there to when we left was a very neat experience for my group to witness first hand. There is nothing like being in nature and seeing it play out right before you own eyes!

We obviously photographed the mom and cubs a lot, but there were plenty of other bears around too. One morning, at first light, we found 3 bears in the same area. They were just milling around at first, and seemed like it may be a slow morning, but then they started to play. It was so fun watching them play and chase, and then play some more. And seeing how the 3 bears interacted with each other and would want to join in on the playing at times, and then sit and rest at times was fun. When the tide would go out, numerous bears would go out to clam, and seeing that behavior is fun to watch because each bear has a different technique of how they catch and eat the clams.

There honestly were too many encounters we had with the mom and cubs to recount them all, and that was an awesome feeling! Each day we were seeing and photographing them. The cubs got more playful as we were there, and it never gets old watching cubs play. Being in the wild with bears being able to truly be wild is an experience everyone should have! It is always sad when the trip is over and we have to leave and go back to the hustle and bustle of life, but the memories and photos we got on this trip, and honestly every Lake Clark trip, are what make it so great and keep me going back each year!

It’s always good to be heading back to Yellowstone in the winter! It’s normally been a couple of months since I’ve photographed by the time I go to Yellowstone, and I don’t like going that long between shoots. With winter weather you never know what you will get either, and that is exciting to me.

Pick up day went smooth, and I could tell it was going to be a fun group! The first few days we spend it on a private snowcoach in the interior of the park, which is always fun. In the morning we didn’t find much, but were on the trail of a wolf. We ended up seeing it, but only briefly and never got a photo opportunity. Around lunch time we found a pine marten! Weasels are always fun to photograph, because you don’t see them very often. This marten really put on a show for us and bounced around the trees in front of us and stayed in photographable range for a long time! It was a real treat!

On our 2nd day we found some nice frosty bison! Frosty bison are iconic to Yellowstone, but the conditions have to be just right for the bison to get frosty. We managed to find a couple different groups of bison that were frosty, and that made my clients happy. We spent a long time with them, and in the afternoon, we went looking for anything we could find. We just missed a bobcat sighting, but a little while later we got to see it! Seeing a wild cat is always a treat, and this bobcat was on the move. It was moving along the hillside across the river from us, but it went into a couple of openings and gave us an opportunity to get a clean shot of it! Pine martens, frosty bison, and a bobcat!! A truly great start!

Day 3 was slow until there was an ornery bison. We came upon a photo group with a couple of bison and all seemed normal. Out of nowhere, this other bison came running along and decided he didn’t like the people. I felt so bad for the people because the bison truly came from nowhere and charged right at them. I had never seen a photo group move so fast before, but I would have been moving just as fast. Thankfully the bison stopped before hitting anyone, but it was a wild scene. My group was very thankful we were in the coach and not outside.

We went to the northern range after being in the interior and had a great first shoot! We found some bighorn sheep, and one was a very large ram. They were near the river and in no hurry to go anywhere. It started snowing while we were there and had so many great photo opportunities with the sheep! We did see a large wolf pack later in the day, but they were very far away.

A highlight from the next couple of days was finding some bison in a white out. They were hard to see, and difficult to photograph, but the setting was very neat and it kept changing as the clouds moved in and out. On the last full day, it was snowing very hard. And it snowed hard all day. That was unfortunate, as in the morning the large wolf pack was not that far away, but because it was snowing so hard it was hard to see them and we couldn’t get any good photos. But seeing them not that far away, and hearing them howl, was fun. We didn’t find much else due to the heavy snow.

When we left the park, I drove down a side road, and all of a sudden there were hundreds of bison and elk in the valley! It was an amazing sight to see that many animals at one time! The drive back to Bozeman was absolutely horrendous due to icy roads and wind blowing sideways across the road strongly. It was a slow go, but we got to Bozeman and said goodbye until the next trip. Another fun and great Yellowstone tour was finished, and I am already looking forward to next years!