Photos

During an early evening in August, at the foot of this mountain in Yellowstone, there was an extraordinary confluence of bright sun, golden grass, and emerald reeds along this small stream. It seemed as though the sky that watered the mountain that fed the stream that yielded the grass -- they were all conspiring to put on this display of yellows and greens before the bleak, sterile days of winter could steal their opportunity.

I was coming in from a trail, up from Mammoth Hot Springs toward Bunsen Peak (8564 ft, 2610 m) when I came upon this scene. The day was waning, the angle of the sun highlighted the greens of all of the surrounding foliage, and it was our last day at Yellowstone. So this photo, along with a few of the others that I took that day (and will attempt to share with you), had a heightened and slightly somber significance.

Bunsen Peak, Yellowstone, August 8, 2008