it dawns on me that it is a female M. gladstoni.

Moved from Melanoplus.

Moved from ID Request.

I see you are fairly new to the guide, and you have some very nice shots. Have you figured out how to move your own images yet? Whenever an expert has given an ID you can move your own image(s) to the appropriate guide page. If you haven't done it before, let me explain.

Under these images click "tag all" (you would only click "tag" if it were a single image). Your images should show up on the left side as small thumbnails if you do this correctly.

Then go to the page you are moving these image to... in this case the Melanoplus guide page. The best way to get there is to search the word Melanoplus. This will give you a bunch of images, so you might want to seach again but put a check in the guide box after 'Restrict search to'. Look for this outcome (this is the first one the search returned to me):

Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids (Orthoptera) » Grasshoppers (Caelifera) » Short-horned Grasshoppers (Acrididae) » Spur-throated Grasshoppers (Melanoplinae) » Melanoplus » Scudder's Spur-throat Grasshopper (Melanoplus scudderi)

From here you will want to click on the Melanoplus section of the guide (I put it in bold for you) Your result after clicking should be:

Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids (Orthoptera) » Grasshoppers (Caelifera) » Short-horned Grasshoppers (Acrididae) » Spur-throated Grasshoppers (Melanoplinae) » Melanoplus

Genus Melanoplus

Now click the 'Images' tab (under the Donate tab and near the top of the page).

Finally you can now click the "move tagged images" link.

You can also review all this info under the Help tab if you ever forget how to do it.

but being female, it's hard to say which one. Color varies a lot. M. sanguinipes is a likely, but far from sure candidate; wings are awfully short for that one.