Return To Glacier National Park, 2023

In 2017 I visited Glacier with my son in law, Francisco. We spent three days together and then met up with a photography workshop led by Andy Cook, of Rocky Mountain Reflections and photographed for another five days. This year I met up with eight good photography buddies three days before the workshop then joined Andy Cook for another five days. We were all completely exhausted by the time we did our last evening shoot after 8 days of hiking in the park.

On our first morning, I looked out my window at 5:30 am and the sky was on fire! I grabbed my camera and tripod and ran for the shore of Lake McDonald. We were staying, as before, in Apgar on the west end of the lake. I caught the above scene and within a few minutes the colors faded. I later talked with a ranger and he said it was unusual to experience such intense sunrises here, so I felt very lucky.

Later that same morning we made our way to the Hidden Lake and Mount Reynolds overlook. It is about a mile and a half uphill hike from the parking lot at Logans Pass. It was made a bit more difficult on this climb by the snow drifts we had to cross which were slushy and slippery and there were several of them, which at the time seemed endless. Of the eight of us that started out, three of us made it all the way. It was a rewarding trek in no small part because the views on the way up were wonderful.

If you spend any time on the West side of Glacier, Avalanche Gorge is a must see. Avalanche Creek flows out of Avalanche Lake just up the road from Lake McDonald (to the east). There is a relatively contained portion of Avalanche Creek that flows through a gorge and the beauty is top notch as if flows over very colorful red rocks. The water has a special blue green color and that along with the white water against the rocks and sides of the gorge are special.

This scene is just above the gorge. It is a pleasant walk from here to Avalanche Lake. I was trying to get closer to those pools of water to get the reflection of the trees but the rocks were VERY slippery and I had to retreat. Falling and drowning are the two leading causes of death in Glacier.

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Family Life Of Red Foxes

The family life of a red fox is a joy to observe. The kits are very much like puppies, jumping on and chasing each other almost the entire day. Of particular interest is how the Vixens teach the kits to eventually become self sufficient around their food supply. There are two vixen in this family unit, the mother and grandmother, and I can not tell them apart. The kits you see here are still suckling from their mother. But by this time in their young lives she is well on the way introducing them to game. In the beginning she will stash the game, encouraging the kits to forage for it. The next step in the process you can see here, where she brings game directly to the kits. Here she is dropping a rabbit for them. At this stage in the teaching she has killed the rabbit. The next stage will be for her to bring them live game. The little black one grabs the rabbit and makes a run for it getting away from his siblings. A...

Red Foxes

I had never experienced anything quite like photographing red foxes. I was with them nearly all day, for three days in a row. I was so taken by them, especially the way they related to each other. Above is the dog fox, the adult male of the group, with one of his offsrping, a female kit fox. In this family group there were two vixen, one was the grandmother, the other the mother of three kits. The adult females attended the den all day with one or the other going off to hunt, returning with food for the kits. Missing most of the day was the dog fox and when he would return the kits all gravitated to him. All of the kits seemed to adore the dog fox but the moments between him and his daughter were especially touching. What a gorgeous, photogenic animal he is. When I returned a year later he was still there and there was a whole new brood of kits. I am hoping to return again this year having missed last year due to a bout ...

Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

Notes To My Mother

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