The magical Wind River Canyon is an interesting place to live.  The weather can alter your life in a moments time, and mail still is not delivered here.  My wife put in satellite internet eighteen months ago, so I could build my wildlife photography website HogbatsPhotography.com documenting, for the very first time, life in this isolated canyon in Wyoming.  Wind River Canyon is literally inside the mountains, as a friend once pointed out; storms seem to come out of nowhere.  Rain may come out of a bucket without warning, or we may have none at all for an eternity; usually both in the same season.  

     Thunder in the Wind River Canyon has to be experienced to be believed; it echos back and forth like a High School band trying to crack the gym walls.  If you love a good storm in the mountains, as we do, then you need to be here for one; honestly, at times it's nearly frightening.  But nothing compares to the dangerous winter storms that charge through here like an angry Buffalo, propelled by the "gods of wind."  Snowstorms in this canyon have taken the lives of people Wind River Canyon, Winter Landscape, Wyoming.Winter morning in the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. I have admired and loved. 

     Snow comes in massive waves that you can see highlighted by the huge cliffs of the canyon walls, driven by those nuts that make the wind.  And wind has piled up drifts nearly ten feet high and run the eighty feet behind our cabin, only to be removed by heavy equipment; we've had drifted snow so high you cannot see out the windows!  Or, you could get a suntan on Thanksgiving while hiking and scouting for wild animals.  The sun will always come out to melt the snow sooner-than-later, and could bring with it tumbling boulders the size of pick-up trucks that block the road; but we wouldn't live anywhere else on this blue marble, because it truly is a wonderfully magical place, where Hummingbirds come to nest in juniper trees.

     The Polar Vortex brought with it a nasty bit of cold and snow earlier then expected this week, and I mean colder than I hope you know.  Twelve below zero temperatures with a wind that threatens to tear your face off, and makes taking pictures a real reality show, all the while making my fingertips blue, yet again.  But it's always so breathtaking after a snowstorm this time of the year, as high altitude fog is lurking because of the reservoir; so I was outside yesterday morning as the sun was breaking the rim of Wind River Canyon.  

     With a Canon 7D camera and my favorite zoom lens, the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS, out I went to freeze my tookis, and take advantage of a rare morning's light.  I tucked the camera inside my coat to help keep the battery warm enough to shoot some frames.  My left hand was in a warm leather glove, my right shooting hand in an old English wool glove with no fingertips; I find this arrangement works, left to carry the rig, right hand in a warmish pocket.  My advice to those that want to try winter landscapes?  Shoot till your camera slows to a crawl....you will know what I mean, and it doesn't last long so you may want to keep an extra of those expensive batteries in a warm pocket.

     I had preset the ISO @ 100 for the best resolution the camera could offer, a RAW file of course, and one of Lexar's new 1066x CF memory cards (Lexar has never in ten years failed me), the camera's shutter speed was set at 1/250 for most of this arctic adventure.  I worked my favorite files later in the "free" software provided by Canon, and in Adobe Lightroom to add some punch to the tiff files.  This entire operation only lasted nine hours work time, happily most of it indoors, but I still had to decide....black and white? or color?  And as you can see....color wins out this time; the color of the morning light in this Wind River Canyon is the greatest.  But blue fingertips really, really hurt to thaw out, so be careful, it will creep up on you. Wind River Canyon, Winter Landscape, WyomingCold Winter morning in the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.      

  Writing, photography and digital darkroom by Michael John Balog - Frozen resident of Wind River Canyon, here in Wyoming.