fshendricks: Here I am on the top of the Beartooth Mts. I'm at 11,000 feet and you can see it is fairly flat over large areas.
fshendricks: This is again on top of the Beartooths. You can see the head of a valley that descends to Red Lodge, Montana some 20 miles away. Notice the lakes and the apparent size of the trees around them. I'd guess the trees are a good 50-70 feet high.
fshendricks: Here I am on the way to the top of the Beartooths at a rest stop. That is a small river and road at the bottom. I'd say the relief is abut 6,000 feet.
fshendricks: A lake as I descended north from the top of the Beartooths. This is grizzly bear country but the campground was safe for camping.
fshendricks: This on the Nez Perce Scenic Highway. I'm on a steep down sloping road that you can't tell here. The mountains actually look three times the size they look here. That red hill has a car at the base for comparison.
fshendricks: A view on the Nez Perce Highway toward Yellowstone NP. The Beartooths are on the right side in the distance. I drove up the green valley on the right
fshendricks: This will give you an idea of the flower displays I saw over and over again in the Bearthooths, Bighorns and Yellowstone. This road is running along Yellowstone Lake.
fshendricks: Harebells hanging over the brink of Lower Yellowstone Falls.
fshendricks: Speaks for himself!!
fshendricks: The valley through which the Nez Perce Hwy runs. I mentioned it in a previous picture as I looked down on it.
fshendricks: This is Buffalo Bill's first tourist lodge built in about 1910. Royalty stayed here and a flag given to Bill by Queen Victoria still hangs in the lobby.
fshendricks: Up from Buffalo Bill's lodge now in the park. I've just entered the park's west gate. This was part of the 1988 forest fires.
fshendricks: This is the Yellowstone river in the park. You commonly see buffalo and other wildlife in this area. Notice how flat Yellowstone park is, even though it's at 8,500 feet. Sort of a hazy day because of the forest fires in other States.
fshendricks: Standing at the head of the Lower Yellowstone Falls.
fshendricks: Moose and calf in the Bighorn Mts. Females get to about 700-800 lbs.
fshendricks: My campground in the Bighorns. No grizzly bears here for good sleeping!
fshendricks: Home sweet home in the Bighorns.
fshendricks: This is Arnica that I saw in the Bighorns. Actually it was also all through the Beartooths. It likes lodgepole pine stands so you find it below 10,000 feet. A large flower.
fshendricks: My view going up to the top of the Beartooths. 90 degrees a the bottom, snow on top. Th at's a river and road at the bottom.
fshendricks: I'm entering Shell Canyon going back up the Bighorn Mts. to see the Medicine Wheel. You'll soon see a picture of the visitor center half way up.
fshendricks: This is one of the Twin Lost Lakes in the Cloud Peek Wilderness. The cliff is about 1,200 feet high. These are otherwise rounded Mts. but glaciers formed on the north sides and pulled the rock from the faces creating bowls called cirque basins. The dep
fshendricks: I'm entering Shell Canyon to get back up to the top of the Bighorn and the Medicine Wheel. Half way up I stopped at the visitor center.
fshendricks: Here I am at the gate to the Medicine Wheel. The Indian Tribes don't allow anyone past the gate to the sacred site. You can see a lot of Buddhist want-ta-bes tying colored pieces of cloth to the enclosure and gate. I saw a few Native American offerings
fshendricks: West Tensleep Lake at the start of my Bighorn hike. Notice how rounded the Mts are compared to the glacial cirque basins torn out of the north sides you see in other pictures.
fshendricks: Tensleep Creek and the meadow on which my camp was on the edge of. Saw moose in the morning. The creek was well stocked with trout.
fshendricks: Got a hiker to take a pic of me on my Bighorn hike.
fshendricks: Alpine meadow on my Bighorn hike.
fshendricks: White pelicans in Yellowstone.
fshendricks: Almost to the top. The cliffs looked huge when I took the picture. You needed to be there. The trees must be a 1/2 mile from the base of the cliffs and there is a basin with two lakes between the trees and the cliffs.
fshendricks: The Medicine Wheel. This is supposed to be some 700 years old. A number of ancient indian trails converge here. Pictures in 1922 show the center was then about 4-5 feet higher.