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The Weekend Fish Mission on the Madison and Yellowstone River

I’ve been in Montana for a little over a year now after moving here from California. While the normal routine in the past was for me was to always bring a camera out on my fly fishing missions, for 2012, I decided to take a break. I’ve stayed pretty busy at the newspaper throughout the year and my weekends became my place to get out and step away from it all. I wanted to be totally present and just study my new Montana surroundings. Also, I was too busy having fun fishing myself to set my rod down and make images. This past weekend I got after it, fishing two days in a row – one on the Madison River with my buddies Jimmy and Camille and the second floating the Yellowstone River with my buddies Sky and Ryan. The decision was made to bring along my camera. While I primarily fished throughout the weekend, I did manage to snap a couple pictures and even got the big brown trout I caught documented on camera (thanks Ryan for taking the picture). Look for more fly fishing photos throughout the year. The fly fishing photography hiatus is over. I’m ready to start documenting the Montana rivers again. Here we go. -M

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Powder Day at Bridger Bowl Ski Area

Montana has been in need of some snow. It’s been a while since we had much and the local ski mountain crew have been holding their breath for a boost. Yesterday they got their wish. I woke up to reports of over 23 inches of snow and it seemed like the whole town called in sick with “powder fever” to go ski it. I was lucky enough to be assigned to document it . Love my job at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Epic ski day!

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All Pistons Firing – A look back at my March 2012 photos from The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

I love Montana! I’ve been having a blast this past month exploring the Bozeman area. Here are some of my latest images I made at my new staff photographer gig at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. The snow is melting and spring is slowly settling in. I’m looking forward to what’s around the corner. Thanks for looking, -M

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Ski Biking at Moonlight Basin

This was a cool story I worked on last week. I got the opportunity to head out to Moonlight Basin Ski Area to document inventor/skier Bob Kolesar along with his wife Ellyn Murphy and their concept Ski Bikes. Basically ski bikes are a high end mountain bike design with modified skis instead of wheels. Bob started making them after Ellyn sufferred a severe head injury back in the 1980’s when the cliff she was hiking on collapsed and she fell 35 feet. The injury has left her having servere weakness on her right side which makes it near impossible for her to enjoy one of her favorite pasttimes of skiing. As a remedy, Bob starting making these awesome bikes for disabled individuals so that they could enjoy the slopes together again. My reporter Jodi and I spent the afternoon trying these things out and had an absolute blast with them. They are awesome. For the full story check out the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. -M

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Watching the Wolves and Wildlife in Yellowstone Park

I’ve been settling into my new surroundings quite nicely here in Bozeman. I’ve been surprised how quickly I’ve adapted into this new mountain lifestyle. After my first full week at my new staff photographer job at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, I decided to take up an offer from a new friend to cross country ski in Yellowstone National Park this past weekend. Not having XC skis of my own, I opted to rent some from the local Chalet Sports in downtown Bozeman and then met up with a new buddy Megan and made the 1 1/2 hour drive south towards Gardiner and the Mammoth Hot Springs for a day out in the mountains. We never made it to the ski trail. Megan had heard from a fellow park ranger that some wolves had been seen in a couple areas of the park recently and that we would have a good chance of seeing them. We decided to check out one of the sights on our way to the trail. Pay dirt. The first spot we saw about 5 wolves laying on a hillside and then stumbled across 10 more at a second location. We ended up scraping the skiing idea and spending the whole day watching the pack through the viewing scopes from the hardcore watchers who were helping out the resident wolf researchers. I have never seen wolves in the wild before. In one day we watched them play, breed, watched how they responded to the alpha males and females, and watched them cross a road in front of us to feast on a fresh buffalo carcass in a field. It was a surreal, fascinating day to watch how these often shy animals think and operate. It was rare treat. Kicking myself for not bringing a larger lenses, I had to settle to photograph them with a 200mm lens. Here are a couple that I liked including a lone bull buffalo cruising along the road. Loving Montana! -M

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Steelheading the North Umpqua Part II

After a pain-stakingly long hiatus from fishing due to my new job in the Bay Area, I was finally able to get out of town last weekend for a two day steelheading mission to the North Umpqua river in southern Oregon. I met up with my good buddy Ryan Peterson, of The Fly Shop and his long time friend Dan from Colorado late Friday evening in Redding. We made our final gear checks, loaded up Ryan’s old Land Crusier and and hit the road for the five hour journey into steelhead country.

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