Editor’s note: In July 2025, Now Habersham weathercaster Tyler Penland headed west to hike and camp in Yellowstone National Park. His latest “Go west, young man” series features the stunning images he captured and the stories he brought back.
After three incredible days in Yellowstone National Park, it was just about time to head to our next destination: the Beartooth Highway. But, we weren’t quite done with Yellowstone just yet. After our run-in with the grizzlies the night before, I woke up before the sun to watch the sunrise over the beautiful fields surrounding Cascade Lake.
It was a bluebird morning with low humidity, which made the chilly 38º in late July feel extra fantastic. It also made the sun extremely bright, so my window for catching it without washing out the shot was very short. Just as it peeked over the nearby ridgeline, the field of purple and white flowers lit up beautifully.
Looking the other direction was no different. The nearby lake, where we had watched a large moose take a drink the night before, reflected the blue sky.
We had a 2-mile hike back to the truck, which luckily this time we ran into neither the bears nor the million mosquitoes we had dealt with on the way in. As we neared the truck, I turned a corner and this interesting play of light caught my eye. This cool little bit of pareidolia, or when our brain sees a pattern that isn’t really there, looked an awful lot like a troll guarding our exit. Do you see it?
A drive to the northeast took us to the absolutely incredible Lamar Valley. We arrived early enough in the day that plenty of wildlife was still out and about. We unfortunately just missed seeing the wolves. Another photographer told us they had seen them about a half hour earlier, but they had gone up into the trees to escape the sun. Out in this valley, you can see what seems like forever.
We set up from an overlook of the valley where we saw plenty of bison, a few pronghorn, and several adorable prairie dogs. These valleys are not only great for the animals on the ground, but they are also excellent for the birds of prey. Hawks and eagles frequent this area, and on this morning we got to see a beautiful juvenile red-tailed hawk, no doubt hunting prairie dogs or rabbits.
We hung out for a couple of hours, hoping to see a return of the wolves. Using binoculars and my giant lens to scan the tree line yielded nothing on this morning, and with the sun rising higher, we had other places to go. We actually backtracked after seeing the first part of the valley.
An overview near Tower Junction caught our eye on the drive down, and it is one of the best overlooks for a real glimpse of the park’s volcanic past. Here, columnar basalt is easily visible all over the walls of the canyon. Here, the Yellowstone Canyon comes to an end, but not before cutting through these six-sided rock columns. These rocks have a complicated history, but form from cooling igneous rock. They can be found all around the world, but are on particularly good display here.
From here, it was finally time to head out of the park. We had thoroughly enjoyed our three days there, but an even grander adventure still lay ahead.
From the northeast exit of the park, you drive straight into the Absorka-Beartooth Wilderness. You briefly cross over into Montana and the lovely small town of Cooke City. This town has a population of only 77 people, but it serves thousands of tourists each year on their trip through Yellowstone and onto the famous Beartooth Highway.
We would spend the next three days of our trip on and around this road, including the hardest hike yet. As we left Yellowstone, we stopped to take a quick snapshot of the mountains awaiting us. The best was yet to come…..
Check out Tyler’s other articles in this series
- Go West, young man: To where it started
- White Mountain
- Bunsen Peak
- Norris Geyser Basin
- Star light, star bright
- A ‘Faithful’ meeting
- Shattering Earth
- Isn’t She Grand?
- Canyons of Time
- Cranes and Bison and Bears, oh my!
