Tuesday, one member of our group was trying to crawl into his Think Tank to get warm, it was near 39 degrees with the wind chill. When you’re cruising a lake photographing Kites, wind chill is a big factor. So when on Thursday we saw the sun, we were quite excited. Now the temp had only warmed up ten degrees, ten degrees is, ten degrees. I wanted to bring a sense of motion to the otherwise static sunrise, so I dropped the shutter speed to 1/10 and shot when the Airboat came to a stop. Its wake did the rest. It was also a valid excuse to take it all in, and now, that sun!

Even a mile away at Artist’s Point, the pounding roar of the falls thumps your chest. The Lower Yellowstone Falls are gorgeous and can be experienced from a number of vantage points on the north and south rims. In the winter, Artist’s Point provides a view right up the river to the cone at its base and the falls. This was our 24th time to experience and record the falls in winter, a beauty that never grows old and is always changing. I stand there trying to bring all that it is into the viewfinder to share, wondering what it was like in the past, and how it will appear in the future. It’s quite the sight, a millennium in the making.

When the Dew Point is just right, we have fog. And when that happens at the same time as the air gets near the Zero mark, we have Hoar Frost. In Yellowstone, when this all comes together, we have magic! The fine ice crystals stick to everything as the frozen fog settles. The beauty is breathtaking, the magic is everywhere. There isn’t any sound, just a sparkling beauty that grabs my heart as I race around making clicks. It doesn’t happen every winter, but I just love, love pines outlined in ice.

Each bend in the road opened up a new view, each view more spectacular than the last. The clouds were smothering the mountains, the mountains pushing back, producing a wet, sticky snow. The light came and went with the clouds, painting the landscape with highlights and shadows. All I could do was drive slowly and scan every inch of the road for a place to pull over and indulge my need to make an image. Thankfully, a rest stop appeared, and while the ladies made use of the stop, I grabbed the camera and went clicking. I did get a few weird glances as I moved about the parking lot, clicking away. But it was gorgeous. It was a good time for a rest stop.