Blocked Portal
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

I came across this pile of rocks when I was bushwhacking down a canon. It looks man-made, almost like an ancient Irish portal tomb or dolmen, but it was just part of a random pile of big boulders blocking my way in the canyon. It would have been a perfect, easy, stand-up walk through the blockage except for the log that had lodged in the middle of the passage during some high-water flood. So instead I had to either crawl under the log or scramble up and over the boulder pile to get to the other side. I chose the latter.

Two Times Strange
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

I’ve hiked quite a bit in the Bighorn Canyon area at varying elevations and this is the only fossilized evidence I’ve seen of ancient sea/lake beds. Not only that, but searching the general area of this sighting yielded only a few other quite small fragments of a similar nature. So it certainly seemed strange to come across an interesting fossil specimen in the middle of a hiking trail. But it was doubly strange to see be two similar sized segments of rock with such different water patterns stacked one on top of the other. When I see such phenomena, my first thought generally is that I wished I knew more about the geology of the area so I could understand the context of what I am looking at. But on reflection, I think perhaps it’s better not to know the hows and whys as it removes all the mystery about the sighting.

Sunrise Over Suessland
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

These rather unusual blossoms (for want of a better word) on some moss-like but hard ground cover on the rocks at Bighorn Canyon looked like some sort of strange trees on a miniature Dr. Suess story landscape. Very other-worldly looking.

Lost Croc
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

This lost Croc fit right in among the driftwood floating on the water.

Pack ’em In
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

I was impressed by how good a job the wind and boat caused ripples and waves on the reservoir at Bighorn Canyon did at packing, with such little overlap or open space, these bits of driftwood into a little rocky nook along the shore.

Close Enough
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

I don’t think we’ve ever camped at Bighorn Canyon without seeing the namesake sheep, often walking right through the campground grazing next to vehicles etc. They seem very comfortable around humans, so it wasn’t surprising that they did not scatter immediately when I saw them this day even though I was a couple miles away from camp hiking on a trail at the time.

After coming across the sheep and realizing they did not seem bothered by my presence, I decided to see how close I could get to them for a photograph before they did react. This was as close as I got before, as it turned out, I was the one who blinked so to speak and turned around and walked off. The closer I got the more my mind began to focus on those horns and the thought of what they might do with them if they felt threatened and chose fight vs. flight. If there had been a ram with them, I probably would not have approached this close before chickening out.

Saddle Shadow
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

Bare Tree #94
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

I’ve walked by and photographed this dead tree several times before. It’s starting to feel like an old friend, one who’s outfit might, on a dark and storm night, come across as a really spooky Halloween costume.

Bare Tree #93
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

This is an example of fitting (i.e. cutting) a round tree into a square peg, into a round (guard rail post) hole.

Idle Threats
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

If you’ve ever had a dog, then you have likely had incidents where your dog sees some unfamiliar object in a familiar environment and starts barking at it, thinking it to be, I suppose, a threatening critter of some sort. I never felt like barking at this unusual dachshund/giraffe shaped stick that was in the parking lot near where we were camping but I did do a double-take every time it came across my vision.