Rainy Day Rodeo

Here in rural Idaho, high school sports include something most big city kids don’t have – rodeo!  There are lots of ranches here, and people are experts with horses, so rodeos are an extension of what they do for a living.

It has been raining here for days, and is so cold that the mountains on the edge of town have a new white coat of snow.  That made our high school rodeo even more difficult than usual.  Mud, water, and worse was everywhere as I worked my way through the horses and trailers to get to the rodeo arena.

Idaho kids are tough.  Here is a bull rider who was bucked off in the mud.  His hand was caught briefly, but he got out of it and walked away unharmed.

A saddle bronc rider also landed hard in the mud.  If you look closely, you can see his boot in the air over the horse.  I wondered how in the world a tight cowboy boot could fly off, but I learned that some bronc riders slit their boots so they will come off easily if their foot gets caught in the stirrup.

The next photo shows the dejected, muddy cowboy carrying his boot out of the arena.

Notice that he is also carrying a helmet with a face guard.  Safety is taken seriously here.

If this had been a big professional rodeo, I would have been stuck in the stands on the far side of the arena, but the rules at these small amateur rodeos are much more relaxed.  I was able to wander anywhere I wanted, and got right against the fence between the roughstock chutes and the roping chute. 

Being close to the action was a great experience, and I was able to get a few interesting crowd shots.

I also got close to the roping competitors, and this girl is a breakaway roper.  The cowgirl ropes the calf, but it isn’t thrown and tied as in the men’s calf roping competition.  Here you can see how muddy it was as the horse skids to a stop.  I decided to use slower shutter speeds to try to capture some movement in the roping events.

I liked the way the loop of this calf roper’s lasso showed up as he chased the speeding calf.  Imagine how hard it would be to rope a calf going full speed on a galloping horse through the mud!

I tried various shutter speeds, and liked this motion image best at 0.6 seconds.  Anything slower lost too much form, making it hard to tell what was going on.  My goal was a feeling of speed with just enough information to be able to recognize the speeding horse.

Soon after I took this photo, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees F, and another storm blew in.  I put away the camera and left before the blowing rain could ruin my gear.  It was another exciting day here in  Montpelier, Idaho.

Remember, all my photographs are copyrighted and cannot be used without my permission.

Elk at Hardware Ranch

Our Sharp Shooters Camera Club went on a field trip to Hardware Ranch in Utah last Saturday to photograph a big herd of elk up close and personal.

This has got be one of the best deals anywhere for family entertainment.  This year there are about 400 elk at the ranch, and we rode a horse-drawn sleigh to see them, for just $5.00 each.

There are many more cows than bulls on the ranch, and the ladies seem to be good at ignoring this bull.  We were told that about 80% of the cows are pregnant, and they need to eat more than the bulls, so they are more likely to come down to the feeding grounds.  All the elk will leave when the snow melts and food becomes available in the mountains again.

Elk need to leave the mountains to find food in the winter, and most of their historic feeding areas no longer exist because of development.  Hardware Ranch, and many other locations in the Rocky Mountains, has been established to grow hay during the summer and provide food for the elk in winter.

This little guy is an elk calf.  It may look small, but an adult bull Rocky Mountain elk (wapiti) can weigh 700 pounds.  The elk here are completely wild and unfenced, so getting this close is a great opportunity.

This is the largest bull elk on the ranch at the moment.  His massive antlers are really impressive, but will shed by the end of winter.  Antler size is determined by age, nutrition, and genetics.

Why do the elk tolerate sleighs full of people?  Our guide said she thinks they are used to being fed from a sleigh so they don’t associate them with danger.  But, if someone gets off the sleigh so the elk see a human shape, they run off in a hurry.  In fact, our sleigh lost a “tug” which had to be reattached.  A second sleigh was placed alongside so the repair could be done while hidden from the elk.  None of this could be done without the beautiful, patient draft horses, and they seem to like attention after each ride.

I recommend Hardware Ranch as a great family destination in the winter.  The kids will love it.

Please note that these photos are all copyrighted and should not be used without my permission.