Time for the next picture presentation of my trip out to Seattle - The Absaroka Mountain Range and the wildlife of Yellowstone!
After passing through the Bighorn Mountains as detailed in my last post, we crossed a span of desert brushland, picked up some KFC chicken for lunch/dinner and headed into the Absaroka Mountain range which borders the East side of Yellowstone NP.
The scenery was lovely as we climbed up to the pass.
And then we got the view from the pass itself! (Side note: a couple summers ago when our family took a trip out to WY, several of us guys climbed up from the river to the peak at the middle of the right edge of the image.)
Here's the road winding down into the valley.
And the interesting landscape that the river carved out.
I sorely wished that I had a wide angle lens along to capture the HUGE expanse of mountain scenery that we saw. This mountain photo was actually a compilation of 4 images pieced together.
Once we got into the limits of Yellowstone, the mountains were not quite as impressive, but the wildlife was very abundant. Here is a pair of Common Mergansers taking flight.
An American Bison - commonly referred to as a buffalo, though technically not related to the true buffaloes.
A Pronghorn "Antelope" though also not technically related to the true antelopes. (What is it with our mammals and their technically incorrect names?)
A Bighorn Sheep (actually is a member of the sheep family this time)
An Elk to round out the collection of mammals - though we did miss a few that are known to reside in Yellowstone.
We stopped for a restroom break at the Mammoth Hot Springs and took a short walk through the colorful rimstone dams.
This was an interesting combination - a hole, a sign reading "Danger - Keep off thermal area" and numerous footprints leading past the sign to the hole. I wonder in which order they appeared.....
Well, that's all for now. More pictures still to come...
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