This image is special for me because it was the first one I sold as a wildlife photographer. I’ll never forget how that felt. I hung the image in a local lunch shop and some anonymous soul paid real money for it. Exhilerating!

It took me three days to climb this mountain, in the blistering heat, carrying 80 lbs. of gear and, okay, well, really this guy was about ten feet off the main road about two miles from Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. That’s how it happens sometimes. My husband and I were on a trip out west and we came around a bend to find cars backed up. I figured there was some critter, so I grabbed my camera, flung open the passenger door, leaped out, and left my husband to find a place to park.

I love this pose, showing where his coat had fallen away. Beautiful, majestic creature. He now graces the cover of my newly released book, Wildlife: A Photographic Collection