Fall was in the air that September, and the grizzly bears I was attempting to photograph in the Beartooth Mountains were hungry, getting ready for their long winter’s sleep. A week had already gone by since the last time I had gotten anything close to a useable picture.

Waking up, making coffee, and telling myself that today would be the day I got the frame was my routine. Then out into the field to fix my camera traps, hiking from one to the next, and repeat.

I walked along the edge of the lake to check on a recently placed trap, thinking about all of the problems that a bear creates as it raids stashes of pinecones buried by red squirrels