OK I know what you’re thinking, what happened to the Image a week?  Well work has been pretty busy (got a new job) and I’ve got a lot on at the moment and unfortunately getting out with the camera took a back seat.

But this week I got the opportunity to visit Northwest Trek which was a fantastic trip.

I went with some of the guys from work (Eric, Chris and Adam), all of use aspiring photographers .  Northwest Trek is basically a safari park at the base of Mount Rainier that contains animals that are indigenous to the Pacific North West, so loads of Elk, Moose, Bison and Bear’s (I’m sure you get the idea).

Now some of the animals are herbivores so pose no danger to us, so those are all running free in a huge park area.  Other animals (black and brown bears, coyote’s and cougars etc., obviously can be pretty dangerous so they are in enclosures.

To see the safe ones, we had to be at the park by 9am and we are driven around on a large bus with no windows that stops for you to take pictures.  The driver of the bus was excellent, she took us all over the park and would pull over when ever we asked and turn off the engine so there was not vibration.  We would all then hang out of the windows to take pictures and then we’d move off again.  This part of the tour lasted nearly 3 hours.

Then we got to walk around the park looking at the carnivores in their enclosures.  The park is really beautiful and the enclosures are pretty large and naturally look like the normal habitat of the animals (that said it’s still a cage so is a little sad).

Anyway, I got LOADs of pictures and am posting some of my favorites here.

While viewing the park I also shot a couple of landscape shots so you can see what the park looks like.

Ironically my favorite thing to shoot was a squirrel that was just sitting in a tree (it wasn’t an exhibit at all).  But he had no fear and just sat there posing, so I got him too.

Hope you like the images.