First Snow Jackson from Teton Pass
First Snow Jackson from Teton Pass
This year we took a trip to the Teton valley of Idaho
hopping to catch the autumn colors in that part of the country, and Yellowstone National Park, the colors were
in full swing, but as luck would have it the weather was dark, gray, and the
skies were overcast, and it rained off and on, since the weather was bad and
the clouds hung low over the mountains that surround the valley we decided to
take a trip over the Teton pass, and into Jackson.
As we traveled up the
pass through patches of fog, it had snowed through the night, and there were a few places where the road
was slick, traffic moved slowly up the winding road through the thick patches
of fog and snow covered turns.
As we neared the top the fog began to clear, and there was a
little sun trying to break through the clouds that hung over the Teton
mountains.
As the sun pierced the clouds, and glided across the valley
floor you could see the late autumn colors that blanketed Jackson hole, and the
lower part of the city of Jackson.
The pines on top of the pass were flocked with the freshly
fallen snow that glistened in the patches of sunlight that streamed through the
cloud cover.
The cold of the winter wind caused tears to well up in my
eyes as I set up the tripod, and got the camera leveled, necessary to capture
the three perfectly aligned photographs to make this panoramic image of the
beautiful morning light, and the low hanging clouds that drifted over the
valley floor.
In this photograph you can see patches of fog still clinging
to the canyons created by the peaks of
the Teton range, the lower Teton range is covered with these beautiful
pine trees, it seams the western pine beetle that has decimated the pine
forests of Utah, and the lower parts of Colorado have spared the pines of Jackson
hole, and the Teton range.
After stopping at the top of the pass we ventured down and
into Jackson, then we headed north into the Grand Teton parkway, and into
Yellowstone, the clouds backed up against the Tetons creating a sealing of
gray, and white blocking the light of the sun, and muting the autumn colors on
the changing trees.
Yellowstone and the Tetons are a fantastic place to visit
regardless of what the sky looks like, and this year was no exception, I
managed to get a few photographs of the rivers that flow through the park, and
even got some of the fantastic color in spite of the soft light.
Generally you can find wildlife in abundance in the park,
from American bison, to elk, and sometimes even a grizzly bear, one time as we
were driving through the park we had a pair of wolves cross right in front of
us, the first one hopped the guard rail, crossing the road about 10 feet in
front of us, my wife asked it was and I told her it was a wolf, and to wait and
see because they don’t travel alone, shortly here came the second one again
crossing the road just feet in front of the car, sadly it happened so fast
there was no time to get a photograph of them. Anyway on this trip we only seen
a few bison, and a small herd of elk that were so far away it was impossible to
photograph them.
If you plan on visiting the Tetons you really need to view
them from both sides of the border, the Idaho side looks so much different from
the Wyoming side, it was the Idaho side that the French fur trappers, having
been away from home for far to long witnessed when they named them the Grand
Tetons.
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