Grand Teton National Park
The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. It extends for approximately 40 miles (64km) in a north–south direction through the U.S. state of Wyoming, east of the Idaho state line. It is south of Yellowstone National Park and most of the east side of the range is within Grand Teton National Park.
One theory says the early French voyageurs named the range les trois tétons (“the three nipples”) after the breast-like shapes of its peaks. Another theory says the range is named for the Teton Sioux (from Thítȟuŋwaŋ), also known as the Lakota people. It is likely that the local Shoshone people once called the whole range Teewinot, meaning “many pinnacles”.
The range is famous because of the dramatic elevation profile visible from the eastern side, which rises sharply from 4,000 to 7,000 feet (1,200–2,100m) above the valley floor. Unlike most mountain ranges, the east side of the Teton Range lacks significant foothills or lower peaks which might obscure the view. This is due to the presence of the Teton Fault at the base of the east slope as well as the range being too young to have eroded into soft hills. The Snake River flows southward through the valley before turning to the west and entering Idaho.
Roadshot, Grand Teton NP, USA
Love this shot, great lighting in late blue hour and the massive mountain range in the background of the busy street. Drivers don’t get the concept of road shots, a person walking in the middle of the street, endangering traffic. I prefer a car in the shot, ideally something authentic like a truck or such. Luckily the road started to split here into a third lane so I could just be in the center without getting honked at.
Once I finished visiting Yellowstone National Park it made perfect sense to drive down the 150 miles and have a look at the grand Teton National park. There was nothing in-between the two and it might just have been just one big National park all together.
The separation made sense as they couldn’t have been any different though. While Yellowstone was more of a plateau filled with thermic features, lakes, waterfalls, animal herds and forests, the Teton’s were mostly a rocky mountain range with a beautiful lake in front, viewed from the valley. I’ve had a few days off work to enjoy Yellowstone, so it was time to find a little town with a library as the emails were piling up. Luckily Jackson Hole, a pretty famous ski and snowboarding town was just located on the south side of the National park and it had a nice little library with all the amenities I needed. I spent my days getting up early to visit the sights and once the sun rose too high and the light got less interesting I headed towards the town and the library. They were the best place to work, quiet, spacious, an amazing desk situation and free Wi-Fi in most of them. I spent my nights far out in the back country just outside the national park, they were some of the coldest I’ve had on the trip.
A fly-fishing man, Grand Teton NP, USA
It’s always good to have somebody in the shot, directs the attention of the eye. Here we have some guy fly-fishing on the most beautiful morning in Jenny lake. The weather changed completely, the day before the lake was pretty rough and in no way able to mirror anything.
One morning I woke up completely covered in snow and iced up. Interesting, it seemed as if all the snow pulled a warm blanket over the car and the night wasn’t as cold as expected, it actually turned out to be a warm one in comparison.
The snow completely changed the look of the landscape and when I started shooting that day it was like a new start, everything looked different, even better than the days before. I really enjoyed the National park, the rocky skyline just looked fantastic in front of the lake mirroring the mountains. I mostly stayed in the valley in front of the mountain range, but did attempt one hike into the mountains. It didn’t work out so well as I had to walk around the lake, climb up the side of the mountain behind it and finally walk into a canyon between them. The first part already cost me half of the day and as the weather turned bad I couldn’t go deeper into the canyon. People came sprinting out of the canyon towards me and I took it as a sign to turn around as well. It must be a great place for multiple day hikes, but leaving Edward alone with all my things over night wasn’t all too appealing. The place was a bit hard to shoot as most of the photos were shot from the valley, mostly directed at the mountain range and thus always showed the same mountains in the background, resulting in similar photos. There were a few photogenic things to be found in the other directions as well, like old farmhouses and snowy roads.
Snowed in, Grand Teton NP, USA
This was the morning after it had snowed over night and I woke up under a nice warm blanket covered in white. Imagine sleeping in the car in under such conditions, pretty crazy but it was all worth it in the end. Winter was coming though and a couple of days later I left for the supposedly warm desert.
One thing on my list in Jackson Hole was to find a mechanic to fix the lights of the car, I looked for the best ratings on google maps and went to Roy’s auto repair.
He and he crew were incredibly busy but they still found the time to have a look at my vehicle, download plans of the cable layout and check a few things. As he couldn’t fix it he didn’t charge me anything but gave me the advice to just keep driving with my headlights on, as the glass was very milky anyways and the lights didn’t shine at 100% of their brightness. With the snow came the winter and the forecast made it impossible to stay in or close to the Teton’s, while still sleeping in the car. The lows were supposed to hit -10 to -14C°. I kinda had enough of the snow and the cold and the mountains, I hoped everything would change once it get to the desert, its supposed to be hot there, right?
