Talk about a big OOOPPPS!!!! I just realized that I’ve never posted most of my photos from my trip west this summer. These are the photos I edited while on the road to share what I was seeing. So they’ve been posted to Facebook and Twitter – but I never shared them here on my blog. I posted the set from Custer State Park and intended to share the others ones shortly after that and never got around to it. So here’s the first set from Yellowstone National Park – photos from Grand Teton National Park, Glacier National Park and Theodore Roosevelt National Park will be coming soon.

What can I say about Yellowstone National Park that hasn’t already been said? It was incredible. The scenery was amazing. The wildlife was everywhere. And there even some wildflowers. Not as many as I expected – there was still an awful lot of snow at Yellowstone when I was there in June.

My stay at Yellowstone was in two parts – during the first few days of my visit I spent time photographing the landscapes and some wildlife, primarily in the areas of the park with all the geysars and other thermal activity. Here are the photos from that part of the trip.

I spent a few nights at the Old Faithful Lodge which gave me some great opportunities to photograph the Old Faithful Geyser. Since it was right by my hotel, I could choose the time of day and light I wanted to photograph it in. Here’s Old Faithful in the wonderful late afternoon light.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

West Thumb Lake is one of the large lakes in the park. Most of it was still frozen when I was there in June – I’ll admit I was surprised to still see so much snow and ice in the park. In places, the snow was still piled higher than my SUV!

© 2011 Patty Hankins

Throughout this part of my trip I photographed lots of thermal activity. From geysers to thermal pools, there was always something different to photograph. I particularly liked the way the minerals from the thermal activity created patterns and colorful shapes on the ground. Here are some of the mineral deposits by the edge of West Thumb Lake.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

One of the biggest surprises for me was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. Having visited Grand Canyon National Park last year, I knew what a river could create by wearing away at the rock over time. I just didn’t expect to see anything like that at Yellowstone. I loved this view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

In addition to the incredible landscapes at Yellowstone National Park – there was the wildlife. As most of you know – I don’t do much wildlife photography. It’s not my strength – and really I’d rather just watch the wildlife in it’s natural environment rather than miss seeing it because I’m spending time and effort trying to photograph it. However I did take a few wildlife shots in Yellowstone.

Throughout the park, there are wonderful herds of bison. Here’s a herd relaxing in a field.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

Here’s one of the Elk from the Lamar Valley

© 2011 Patty Hankins

And finally – a tree swallow. I’m very proud of this photo. Photographing birds is so not my strong point! I have more bad photos of birds, places where birds used to be, birds flying out of the photo, etc than I care to admit. With lots of advice from Dan Williams (my favorite bird photographer) I finally studied a bird’s behavior, realized what spot the bird kept returning to – and set up my camera and tripod focused on that spot. So when the sparrow returned to his favorite landing spot – I was in place and ready to take my photo!!!!

© 2011 Patty Hankins

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my landscape and wildlife photos from Yellowstone National Park. I’ll post some of my wildflowers photos from the park soon.