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.

Visit First Snow, Jackson From Teton Pass