Fall Photography in the National Parks - Day 10

September 21th, 2025

Last night I slept in a place that I found on iOverlander.
It was essentially a parking lot, but it did the job well, and there wasn’t much noise.
I left at 6:00 AM to head to Grand Horn National Forest.

To get there, one has to go through a couple of little towns, but the views of the plains are great. There are a lot of rock formations that make you think about alien forms.
Once at the feet of the mountain, the climb begins, and the views become even better with rocks billions of years old, canyons, rivers, marshes and whatever comes to your mind.

A off-road picnic area in Bighorn National Forest

Once on top, I saw two moose. Too early in the morning, barely any light. Got some footage of them anyway and moved on.
”Well, I already saw two moose!”, I thought.

I stopped at the Visitors Center to ask for a few information. The young guy at the reception was great and informative, and told me also some hot spots for viewing the moose.
He mentioned that the best time is really July and August, and that there was no guarantee of seeing them this time of the year.
But I knew I would find them, given that there are over 600 of them in this area.

I then began exploring the area, and as the sun rose, I found another moose lying down in the meadows.
It was far away, but the back-lit shot was nice, and I captured some good footage.
I had time to experiment with my 400mm f2.8 TC VR S and the 1.4X and 2.0X Teleconverters, which was also valuable.

I couldn't find much more, so I stopped in a fisherman's parking area on a dirt road to have lunch and plan my next steps.

The fisherman's parking area in Bighorn National Forest

I drove around for a while but didn't find anything else to photograph. Then, I started looking for campgrounds as the sun was hiding behind the mountains.

I was already deeply impressed by this place.