Ashton, Idaho

From one day to the next… I just spent a few days in West Yellowstone and Ashton, Idaho. On Saturday we had snow and wind and on Sunday it was sunny, cool, and spectacular.

Spring near Ashton, Idaho.

White and green. Shot near upper Soda Butte Creek, Yellowstone National Park.

Big Lost River

It's been on the cold side for September. Snow on the mountains and even on the valley floors for a day or so. The leaves are just starting to turn but it's felt like late October. Elk are bugling and sand hill cranes are on their annual migration south making their pre-historic garble as they circle at great heights and barley stubble and cheat grass and even rabbitbrush have taken on their yellow hues while smoke bellows out of a two-room house chimney along a ditch somewhere in Mackay, Idaho.

Lost River Range. Mid-September. Idaho.

The Sawtooths

Smoky skies are the new norm for August. Thunderstorms have been rolling through too, compounding the surreal color cast with a muggy and palpable sky. Sometimes it smells like sweet pipe smoke. The rest of the time it's not discernible to my nose. Burning sage and bitterbrush to the south and I suppose some cheatgrass as well. Lodgepole pines are getting cremated to the north. A visual amalgamation of sorts: muted, Impressionistic, cold-blue in August, and teary-eyed. 

Sawtooths & Smoke. August 2017. Idaho.

Sawtooths & Smoke. August 2017. Idaho.