Carter E. Gowl Landscape Photography

Southeastern view, evening twilight, in northeastern Yellowstone National Park — middle of June. Osborne Russell, one of the earliest trappers to visit Yellowstone, was awed by the beauty of the Lamar Valley on his first visit in 1835. Returning to his favorite "Secluded Valley" the next year, he wrote in his journal, “There is something in the wild romantic scenery of this valley which I cannot . . . describe, but the impressions made upon my mind . . . one evening as the sun was gently gliding behind the western mountain and casting its gigantic shadows across the vale were such as time can never efface from my memory."