February 25, 2011
Silverback Mountain Gorilla in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

On our fifth, and final, day of mountain gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda, we visited the Umubano group which has 12 members.

We had our best group of hikers, but also our easiest hike. As we were approaching the park boundary, we could see some gorillas just across the boundary wall! When we stopped to drop off our porters before crossing the boundary wall, a gorilla walked by through the fields. The grueling 0.7-mile (1.1km) hike from the trailhead at 8590 ft (2620m) to where we left our porters at 8790 ft (2680m) took us about 35 minutes. There was a solid cloud layer when we started photographing the gorillas which was great for reduced contrast but the low light wasn't very good for the almost nonstop action between two infants and two, sometimes three, juveniles. They were chasing each other and wrestling practically the whole hour we were with the group. On my past treks, I had seen similar behavior for maybe 10-15 minutes, so it was exciting to watch even if it was frustrating to capture. My favorite image is of the silverback, Charles, shortly after we crossed the boundary wall into the park. He was walking down towards the members we had spotted earlier, and stopped to pose nicely in a small clearing.

After we left the gorillas and crossed over the boundary wall to head back to the trailhead, we saw two more gorillas outside the park in the fields. It was like they didn't want to see us go — or was it that we didn't want to go?

The combination of my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV and Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM was perfect for photographing the mountain gorillas on this trip. I'm glad I used that instead of my Canon EOS 1Ds Mk III and my old Sigma AF 120-300mm f2.8 APO EX IF USM. We were generally closer to the gorillas than on my previous trips, so the effective 260mm on the long side was sufficient for most shooting, and it was nice to have the effective 91mm on the wide side. The frame rate and buffer size of the 1D Mk IV let me capture the action when it occurred.

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