Wildflowers bloom as the sunset puts on a show outside of Green River. (Jayden Ungaro)

Jayden Ungaro, 18, recently moved to Texas, where her husband is in the Army. She grew up in Green River, taking photographs of a place she loves.  

One night, she was driving near the Pilot Butte Wild Horse Loop outside town when she was struck by the scene before her. 

“I was just driving around with a friend and saw how the clouds were rolling and how great of contrast the flowers gave with the sunset and the landscape just seemed endless,” she wrote to WyoFile. 

Ungaro captured the scene on her phone, a Samsung Galaxy smart phone. 

The photo won first place in the “lands” category of The Nature Conservancy of Wyoming’s 2021 “I Believe in Conservation” student photo contest. 

“My favorite part of the photo is that you can just see how windy Wyoming is, oddly enough, with how the clouds are rolling and the bushes are blown forward,” Ungaro wrote. “It just really sums up Wyoming.”

Even though she’s thousands of miles away from Green River at the moment, she wrote, it’s not forever. “I will 100% be moving back.”

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Katie Klingsporn reports on outdoor recreation, public lands, education and general news for WyoFile. She’s been a journalist and editor covering the American West for 20 years. Her freelance work has...

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  1. Nice to see WyFile cover the people and places of Wyoming and not just the political sideshow.

    Good luck to Jayden Ungaro and her family.