A few months back Karen and I took a trip to Jackson Wyoming where we got to visit the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. A little time has passed and I’ve had time to go through the holidays and also the pictures and put together a little video. Hope you enjoy a virtual trip to Wyoming…
Tag: Grand Teton
The Wyoming Adventure Day 4
Welcome to day 4! This morning we slept in a little to recover from the death climb from the (near) bottom of the Grand Caynon of Yellowstone and as we looked outside, we really didn’t miss much. Still raining, but it looked to be letting up, so we got up and decided to go for breakfast. After filling our bellies we decided that cloudy pictures are better than no pictures so off we headed, this time back to the Teton National Park. First stop, back to the Chapel of the Transfiguration. Even with the clouds covering the mountains, you can get an idea of what it must be like to worship in this place. Who needs a stained glass window when you have God’s handiwork right outside!
Next we took a drive along the coast of Jenny Lake. They have spectacular views of the mountains there, at least when they aren’t covered in clouds. On still days you can get perfect reflections in the lake. Unfortunately, we had neither a clear sky nor still water, but I think the cloud covered peaks are starting to grow on me. There’s just something about them…
Shortly after leaving Jenny Lake, we came upon a spot on the road when about 20 cars pulled over, and as we have already learned that only means one thing around here… WILDLIFE! So we pull over, jump out with cameras in hand and make a very short climb to see what everyone is looking at. There we see a mamma moose and her calf grazing in the grass. We noticed that the mamma was limping and the ranger there said that they had spotted her yesterday in the area and don’t know what had happened to her. This close to winter there is some doubt that she will make it through to spring, but there is always hope.
Next stop was Cunningham’s Cabin. This is supposed to be the first settlement in the area, or at least the first non-native settlement. 🙂 It looks like Mr Cunningham picked a very nice spot for his cabin.
Can you imagine waking up every morning to this out your bedroom window? This would definitely work from home country!
As the day was coming to a close, we stopped by Snake River Overlook for some sunset shots. The first thing we noticed when walking through the parking lot was a rustling in the weeks. My first thought was a dangerous rabbit with huge sharp pointy teeth, but it turned out to be a simple chipmunk. I wasn’t sure about the pointy teeth though so I kept my distance.
After shooting the little chipmunk, I set up my tripod and before long there was about 20 other photographers all standing around waiting on the sun. By this time most of the clouds had cleared away and it was obvious to everyone that the sunset was going to be one to see. Here are a couple of shots as the sun progressed behind the mountains.
There was one last thing that was catching my attention. The peak of Grand Teton never really let go of it’s little cloud even after all the other peaks were cleared and then it hit me. Actually I overheard someone else mention this and then I knew what it was. They said, “Hey, that looks like a painting I saw once of the Mountain of God.” Of course. In the book of Exodus when God descended to Mount Sinai to speak to the Children of Israel. Here is the description: Exo 19:18 “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently…” I know it is only a cloud, but it’s a pretty dramatic cloud! 🙂
Until day 5…
The Wyoming Adventure Day 2
Today started out simple enough. We drove out to get some morning shots of the Grand Teton peak. We stopped by the Church of the Transfiguration which is in the part and is ran by the local Episcopal Church, but they were having services so we couldn’t photograph inside and decided we would return later for that, but I did get a nice shot of the peak. Good thing too because it was to be about the last we saw of any blue in the sky. It appears that the rain followed us from Texas all the way up here.
As we were leaving the area we noticed a lot of people standing on a bridge, where it says “No stopping or standing anytime”. Well, of course we had to get out and see what was going on like everyone else. There were a couple of moose down by the river and everyone was shooting away with their cameras. This was cool because moose was one of the animals that we were wanting to see while we were up here.
Next we swung by an what remains of the cabin that was used in the 50’s western Shane. My dad is a big fan of that movie so I thought I’d get some pictures of it for him. As you can see, By this time the rain was moving into the area and the mountains were becoming clouded in haze. The only thing missing was a little kid running to the corner of the cabin yelling “Come back Shane!”. Well, that and the roof. {edit 9/26/09: Just rented and watched the movie Shane and it was clear to me that this is NOT the cabin that Shane was staying in. This was in fact in the movie, but it was a homestead of one of the other farmers. Still a historic movie location.}
Next stop… The most photographed barn in America. I think that is actually it’s official name at this point. 🙂 This is an old barn that was built by the Mormon settlers in the area back in the late 1800s. Seems that every photo-buff that comes to the area gets a shot of this one so I didn’t want to be left out. Of course I at least tried to make it a little different than the other shots I had seen. Low and wide was my plan.
And then after dinner, we watched the sun set behind Mount Moran (and the clouds). Not a very spectacular sunset but once it was down I took the opportunity to capture this long (15 second) exposure.
Tomorrow, more dogging rain and taking pictures. As it stands right now, Thursday is the only day this week without some sort of rain activity mentioned in the forcast. Maybe I’ll get some cool storm shots to share. 🙂 There’s always a bright side.