drainage Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on September 8, 2020August 30, 2020 by Frank Bliss

After the Hail Storm

I started working this storm because I couldn’t get out of it’s way. There were a few rain/hail shafts pursuing me across the flats so I went up on the ridges to get a better look at the storm. It’s not often I get to see running water in these ephemeral washes. (Good word to google). This storm just Dumped Water with marble sized hail for some time. I’m estimating 2 inches of precip fell with right at an inch of ice in places. Here it had melted somewhat since it was 60 degrees out up at the local top of the world for this shot.

The water that was accumulating down river would have been significant from this storm. I didn’t go down to the flats where dozens of these little washes conjoin into a much bigger force to be dealt with down river.

The Storm was breaking as sunset approached. Passing to our east leaving me with a window to the sky. A crepuscular display ensued for our enjoyment.

The chill in the air that night was only matched in it’s uniqueness only by the mist rising then flowing down valley. Neither something I’m used to this drought year. A river of dense fog rolling down the valley. That vision has already published on the internet a week ago. The saturated air hitting all the hail ice covering the ground made a wonderful fog generator. Both evaporation and sublimation (another google word) was occurring along with the flooding locally.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: After the Hail Storm

Posted on April 30, 2020April 23, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Old Dobie Communications Tower

I’m standing 2 miles away from the tallest point on my ranch called “Old Dobie”. I have NO idea of why it is called “Old Dobie”. Perhaps one of my readers will know and inform me. It was called that when I moved here, so the name remains. It peaks a good 300 feet above where my feet stand. There are fairly impressive views of the 180 miles across horizon to horizon sky we enjoy there. My house is over the ridge to the right about a mile and a half. I am standing in Montana looking across the border into Wyoming.

The top of that hill has a communications tower on top. There is a good microwave connection to high bandwidth internet. Our tower provides local ranches and even a local school with broadband internet. I used to be in the internet business but I’m only hosting the company that does up there. I built that tower in 2008 and it has performed flawlessly since. It’s 60 feet tall on a 300 foot high hill over the average surrounding ground and 500 feet higher than the lowest ground around. We also have a 2 meter ham radio repeater up there at 147.270 mHz, 123 PL with a pos offset. 147.870. It can communicate with pretty much anywhere in North East Wyoming working through the North East Wyoming Amateur Radio Associations network in this region.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)

Title: Old Dobie Communications Tower

Posted on March 25, 2020March 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Right Turn Clyde

With full reverence to the classical reference to a Clint Eastwood movie in Jackson Wyoming. You might remember the Orangutan that liked to use hand signals?. Having done traffic stops as a police officer I assure you such things have happened in the real world lol. I think I’ve seen it all at this point lol.

So.

Perspectives using leading lines to draw the eye to the focal point in the distance is a trick as used by the old masters. The trick for us modern photograhers using cameras is to see the frame as those master painters would. It’s hard to improve on their senses of perception from the 3D world to the 2D frame of an image. The more I do this photography thing, the more I believe I’m thinking like a painter.

Of course I don’t get to choose my color pallet. I am only what is provided by the grand designer of such things. I watch what is going on around me. To where my eye is drawn, I often follow physically. Then evaluate/ compose if appropriate. Click.

There are SOOO many little areas of Zen. Spread about the remote backcountry they are randomly.. I just haven’t noticed them all yet. I’ve driven the same paths for decades to get from point A to point B. I strongly suggest getting of the beaten trail, look at where you are versus where you’ve been before. Go to somewhere you haven’t been.

In the 20 years I’ve been intensively driving the 5.5 square miles of my ranch, I still haven’t seen everything. Not even close. My nephew and his brother in law were driving around the ranch and found an old 1920’s truck 1/2 buried by time and blowing sand. I had never seen it before and have yet to make it to that spot.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Right Turn Clyde

Posted on March 11, 2020March 4, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Autumn Mud Hills Overlook

Autumn Mud Hills Overlook (Brown Season)

I am literally shooting across the Montana/Wyoming border taking this shot. The trees in the foreground are in Wyoming. The range to the north in Montana. This is a favorite overlook of mine. A view to the north of the Mud Hills which is the first range north of my ranch across the Ranch Creek Drainage.

Called the “treed” pasture this fraction of the ranch is about 2 square miles of grazing patch of mixed pine trees and grassy hills and gullies. It is a land of many uses: Cattle grazing during the summer pasture is a major use here obviously. Cattle can’t be pastured around pine trees in the winter as they will eat the needles. Those needles contain turpentine which will cause the pregnant cows to spontaneously abort. Several hundred cow/calf pair hang out around here for a month or two during Late May through Early July.

We move cattle out of this pasture in early July. This facilitates the Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship courses 3 and 4 use. This ground has been home to a nationally ranked Team Tactical Rifle Championship for 18 years. Almost 4 miles of groomed rifle courses in 16 shooting stations. All exposing 150 fixed reactive steel Targets out to 1200 yards. This location is the last (or first) station on course 3 lolol. Snipers nest with literally thousands of precision rifle shots at those reactive steel targets down range.

There are a few dozen locations (I’ve found so far) within this “Pasture” that has Hell Creek/Lance Formation. These rock contain dinosaurian (and others) fossils. I found my first dinosaur tooth in this pasture 18 years ago. I knew they were here, I just didn’t know where. You do have to look though occasionally I stumble on dinosaur bones laying in the grass. Just like any other stone in the middle of the prairie lol.. I have found several fossil locations that way. You can’t find them if you can’t see them lolol.

We even have had a nationally released 4×4 video in 2008 filmed here. Peterson’s 4 Wheel Drive and Off Road Magazine filmed part of their “Ultimate Adventure” video series here that year. It’s out there if you want to watch several high end jeeps flip over. All trying to climb out of some of the soft sandstone lined gullies. As I say, a land of many uses…

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Autumn Mud Hills Overlook

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Winter Twilight North View

This a view northeast from one of my favorite overlooks just in Wyoming looking across the border north into Montana. Sunrise is seconds away to the right of frame. The far ridges name, 10 miles distant, dubbed the Mud Hills. Those reside inside Montana. I’m standing in Wyoming with my cameras. Currently as I type this, the snow is melting with a 50 degree day and melt water is running in the fields. The winds are blowing and the cold front is incoming. The next time I go the three miles of drifted two track roads, it will crunch along the way from the ice patches.

This image over the “Ranch Creek” Drainage. Montana 544 follows the valley going over the pass on the right side of the frame. The Montana / Wyoming border area remains a beautiful unspoiled area. Way bigger than most states. Eastern Montana/Wyoming are highly under appreciated in the drive through tourist trade lol. Everybody stays on the interstate highways at 80mph. As a photographer I would way prefer to drive backcountry roads at 45 mph through an area I haven’t been to before. So many things appear around the next bend that are photogenic every time I travel backcountry.

The Mud Hills sediments composed of the Tullock/Fort Union Tertiary rock formations are younger than where I stand. They COULD contain fossils like crocs, mammals, trees, leaves, amphibians but NO dinosaurs. The ground I’m standing on however is highly likely to have dinosaur fossils within a mile of where I stand. . This ground is eroded Hell Creek/Lance formation and it is dinosaur bearing. Older than the rocks higher on the hills. Humm.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (looking across the border).

Title: Winter Twilight North View

Posted on December 18, 2019December 12, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Overlook to the Mud Hills

I am literally standing on the Montana/Wyoming border taking this shot. This is a favorite overlook of mine. A view to the north of the Mud Hills which is the first range north of my ranch across the Ranch Creek Drainage. We call this place the “treed” pasture as it’s about 2 square miles of mixed pine trees and grassy hills and gullies.

A land of many uses:

Cattle grazing during the summer pasture is a major use here obviously. Cattle can’t be pastured around pine trees in the winter as they will eat the needles. Those needles contain turpentine which will cause the pregnant cows to spontaneously abort. Several hundred cow/calf pair hang out around here for a month or two during Late May through Early July. We move cattle out of here in early July to facilitate the Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship courses 3 and 4 use.

This ground has been home to a nationally ranked Team Tactical Rifle Championship for 18 years. Almost 4 miles of groomed rifle courses in 16 shooting stations exposing 150 fixed reactive steel Targets out to 1200 yards. This location is the last (or first) station on course 3 lolol. Snipers nest with literally thousands of precision rifle shots at those reactive steel targets down range.

There are a few dozen locations (I’ve found so far) within this “Pasture” that has Hell Creek/Lance Formation that contain dinosaurian (and others) fossils. I found my first dinosaur tooth in this pasture 18 years ago. I knew they were here, I just didn’t know where. You do have to look though occasionally I stumble on dinosaur bones laying in the grass like any other stone in the middle of the prairie. I have found several fossil locations that way. You can’t find them if you can’t see them lolol.

We even have had a nationally released 4×4 video in 2008 filmed here. Peterson’s 4 Wheel Drive and Off Road Magazine filmed part of their “Ultimate Adventure” video series here that year. It’s out there if you want to watch several high end jeeps flip over trying to climb out of some of the soft sandstone lined gullies.

As I say, a land of many uses…

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Overlook to the Mud Hills

Posted on December 4, 2019November 27, 2019 by Frank Bliss

MudHills Snowy Evening 2:1 Aspect

This a view northeast from my Communication tower hill in Wyoming. The far ridges name, 10 miles distant, dubbed the Mud Hills. Those reside inside Montana. The Hill in between is rIght directly on the Montana/Wyoming border. I’m standing in Wyoming with my cameras. Currently as I type this, sustained 30mph winds are howling at 20 degrees. 20/30 days are chilly.

High Contrast Landscapes lens themselves to a wide treatment. The peaks are about 10 miles distant. This is a very wide image over the “Ranch Creek” Drainage. Montana 544 follows the valley going over the pass on the right side of the frame. TheMontana/Wyoming border area remains a beautiful unspoiled area. Way bigger than most states. Eastern Montana/Wyoming are highly under appreciated in the drive through tourist trade lol. Everybody stays on the interstate highways at 80mph. As a photographer I would way prefer to drive backcountry roads at 45 mph through an area I haven’t been to before.

The Mud Hills sediments composed of the Tullock/Fort Union Tertiary rock formations are younger than where I stand. They COULD contain fossils like crocs, mammals, trees, leaves, amphibians but NO dinosaurs. THe ground I’m standing on however is highly likely to have dinosaur fossils within a mile of where I stand. . This ground is eroded Hell Creek/Lance formatoin and it is dinosaur bearing. Older than the rocks higher on the hills. Humm.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (looking across the border).

Title: MudHills Snowy Evening 2:1 Aspect

Posted on December 1, 2019November 25, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Green Spring Wash

Green Spring Wash is a capture from May of 2019. Our region has been in a winter weather pattern since October 1. I figured it was time to put you here with me at that time. This is a broad wash (shallow gully) that can flash flood with feet of water)

I had driven there in an open ATV. Early may is a tad chilly as the sun rises as such I was aware of the temperature. It wasn’t windy when I was walking though. Just brisk. This gully is a few miles from my homestead and I hadn’t worked this before. This gully has wonderful sculpted rocks and cottonwoods along with the thickest grass I’ve seen up here. All the mineral sands from a few square miles of drainage area wash by here. It’s probably as fertile as it gets in this country. .

The sun had just risen a few moments before. The sky was blue as could be with a cloud bank to the left blocking the sun. Contrasts are important. This was just a small window to the sun on a mostly overcast morning. This wash was full of spring growth.

That sideways branch in the foreground was budding having broken away from it’s parent tree years ago. Just a fine connections (lifeline) is all it needs. Life is resilient as heck here. It has to be to make it past the floods, the winds, the cold and the summer heat. Drought and fire is a common event. As a famous Movie once stated “Life will find a way”.

2:1 Aspect to 40 inches

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Green Spring Wash

Posted on November 14, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Ucross View to the BigHorns

Surface Geology north of Ucross View to the BigHorns

What a wonderful glacial terrain. The geologist in me sees all sorts of evidence of past glaciers in this valley. Dozens and dozens of “signs”. First of course is the obvious proximity to a 13,000 foot mountain chain. In the last 1/2 million years we have had 5 glaciations advance and retreat in North America (world wide too). We are in an interglacial period at the moment and a mild one fortunately for us. Warm is good, cold means famine historically.

If you look at the valley floor in this scene, note the bumpy nature of the terrain. Each of those bumps is a pile of gravel with all sorts of geomorphological names depending on their shape and relationship to the glacier that was running through this valley. They are all water sorted gravels in various kinds of shapes and sizes. The gravel piles were mostly formed as the glacier receded and left it’s gravel load behind as the ice melted. The geomorphologists out there call glacial gravel “Boulder Clay” because that is pretty much what it is. Boulders and smaller all mixed up.

The rounded mound in the foreground caught my attention. I think (as I didn’t walk out there) that it is bedrock based on the vegetation change at the top. Those upper layers were very hard and resisted the erosion that removed all around it protecting the softer material below. The aforementioned glacier looks like it rode over it giving it that rounded mound like appearance. Classic.

Location: Just outside of Ucross Wyoming

Title: Ucross View to the BigHorns

Posted on October 30, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Big Horn Mountains Behind the Veil

The view from my Driveway of the Big Horn Mountains behind the Veil of a big cloud bank in the Powder River Basin. That ridge is about 40 miles out from my position and the peaks of the 13,000 feet high Big Horns are 130 miles out from my viewpoint.
This is actually a side show to the sunset on going off the right side of this frame.

We are as high elevation wise as the first black ridge (the Red Hills) and generally have the same weather as the high grounds around us. The lower areas down in the valley often has rain where we get snow. We call this place.. “Little Siberia” and that designation has been handed down to us from the previous owners of this ranch decades ago lol. The name still applies. But we have the views😄

As I type this, we are 4 degrees (oct 29th) at 5:14AM. … It’s October NOT November yet. Winter is coming (for a classic reference).

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 24, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Perspective: Hay Bales on Mitten Butte’s Apron

These one ton round hay bales give a perspective for the 3 miles to this Monadnock center frame named “Mitten Butte” showing a wet years hay production for this pasture. (There are others too). Still have to pick those up and stack em lol. We can’t let cattle loose in those fields until that is done lolol. They would tear the bales to bits just for fun. Some diesel fuel might have to become involved to complete this chore of picking them up and stacking them all 🤔

We are a dry land ranch and as such usually just have one cutting. There are places we might have had a second if we tried. 14 inches of precipitation per year is our normal yearly allotment for water. We got that much this summer lol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Posted on October 18, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Fall Was on a Tuesday This Year and Looked Like This

Fall was on a Tuesday this year and looked like this. The next day it was covered in snow. It was still green in the valleys and local wet areas. This is the “greenest” I’ve ever seen it here.
Winter has come early with 4 inches of wet stuff on the ground as I post this. You’ll see this image a week later on the 18th when it comes up in the que.

Location, standing in Wyoming and shooting north into Montana…. Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.