Maybe it was watching the tv show ‘Yellowstone’, or maybe it had been listening to my mom always talk about working in Yellowstone National Park during the summer when she was in college, but something in the recesses of my mind persuaded me to venture west to one of our country’s most beautiful places. I had purchased my first real deal digital camera and thought I was a badass. Little did I know nature would show me who the real badass was. Upon my arrival in Bozeman, MT a wildfire ignited north of town along a popular mountain. Within hours, it grew exponentially before covering the mountain. I had rented a large telephoto lens for the week, but it was still hard to capture the power of the blaze. Even documenting from a distance, it was an unreal sight, unlike any fire I had ever seen.

Two days after seeing the power of nature’s fire, I got a real taste of Wyoming’s own Mother Nature. While exploring one of the many geysers of Yellowstone, a blizzard descended upon the park, unleashing a fury of snow and wind unlike anything I had experienced. Wind gusts of up to 40+ mph with snow and sleet roared through the pines as I prepared my dinner and readied myself for bed in my tent. I put earplugs in to dull the roar around me so I could get some sleep. Although the temperature plummeted to 30 degrees, I managed to keep warm in my sleeping bag.

The next morning the wind had calmed and the sun rose to reveal a beautiful snow covered landscape. I looked around and realized I was extremely lucky, not only to be in that place, but because the strong winds had blown over some trees in the night! Over the next few days I traveled the park to Old Faithful and the Grand Prismatic among other locations. I also headed south for a couple of days to see the Grand Tetons. There was simply too much beauty witnessed on this adventure to describe here, so I must let some of these images do that for me.