Teton panorama - Cathedral Group to Mount Moran

 During a visit to Grand Teton National Park in 2016, we stopped along the Teton Park Road to enjoy this view of the Teton Range.  This is a panorama of six images stitched together to show the range from the Cathedral Group on the left (Grand Teton, Mount Owen, and Teewinot) to Mount Moran on the right.

Click on the image to see the whole panorama.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Lake Solitude, Grand Teton NP, panorama

Here is a panoramic image of Lake Solitude in the Grand Teton National Park wilderness. We stopped here to resupply our water bottles during our backpack trip up Cascade Canyon on our way to Paintbrush Canyon's lower camping zone. The Grand Teton peak appears at the left in this image, just to the left of the darker ridge with snow patches on it. The sun was getting lower on the horizon, so we realized we wouldn't be making it to camp during daylight.

The two vertical streaks on either side of the sun appear to be part of the panorama making process and wasn't something I, Rick, observed while capturing the image.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Starting a Backpacking Trip Along Jenny Lake in Grand Teton

Bob is stopped along the trail to get a photo of Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park. This image was taken with Rick's smartphone camera app's panorama feature. You can see the trail we came from to the left in the image and the direction we're going to the right. Also to the right is Grand Teton, Teewinot, and Mount Owen in the Teton Range. For this backpacking trip, we were heading up Cascade Canyon and coming down Paintbrush Canyon, where we spent the night in the lower camping zone. We parked at String Lake and hiked south toward Cascade Canyon, which made the first day a long day of hiking and second day, much shorter. The first day took even longer for us because we kept stopping to take pictures and to enjoy the thimbleberries and huckleberries.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

A Setting Moon Over the Tetons

After waiting in line to get into the Jenny Lake Campground early one morning, we got to witness the setting moon over the Tetons the following morning. Grand Teton itself isn't in the picture, however, the moon is over Mount Owen. The taller mountain to the left is Mount Teewinot. It turns out that these two mountains block your view of Grand Teton, so anyone driving into and hiking around the Jenny Lake area can't see Grand Teton. Rick was just walking around the campground area and happened to look toward the highest mountains and noticed the moon there. So he rushed back to the car to get the camera and get some photos before the moon set.

The image was taken at ISO 100, f/16, 1/60 sec, with a zoom of about 4.5 power.

Remember, it's not just a story, it's a story!

Nearly full moon setting sequence over the Grand Teton summit, Wyoming

On the first morning of our recent Teton/Yellowstone trip we were up in time to catch the moon setting over the Teton Range in Grand Teton National Park.  Bob caught the following sequence of the moon setting where it passes behind the summit of the Grand Teton peak itself.  Mount Owen is to the right, which, along with the peak called Teewinot constitutes the group of peaks known as the Cathedral Group.

We were set up at the Mountain View Turnout along the Teton Park Road to photograph the moon's setting.  The mountains are especially red because of the rising sun which was also helped by a forest fire in this region. At the same time we also saw the sun rise over Jackson Hole as you can see in the photo we posted earlier.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

It was totality worth it! A vertical photo of the solar eclipse over the Tetons.

Here's another shot of the eclipsed sun over the Teton peaks as seen from Table Mountain.  Bob backpacked to the top of Table Mountain in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness Area in order to see the solar eclipse from the classic view of Le Trois Tetons made famous by William Henry Jackson.  He was a photographer on the earliest survey expeditions of the Yellowstone and Teton areas and took some of the first photographs of the Tetons from Table Mountain.

The black dot in the sky is the moon eclipsing the sun.  The horizon in all directions looked like the sun was setting, even though the sun was high in the sky.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Teton Crest Adventure (The "Real" Teton Crest)

We've put our video of the backpacking trip we took to cover the Teton Range in 1999 online. There is a Teton Crest Trail mostly in Grand Teton National Park, but the National Forest on the western side of range also had a Teton Crest Trail, which actually covers a longer stretch of these mountains. We backpacked on the Forest Service's trail but discovered after completing our trip that the Forest Service trail is no longer maintained. We had to do some route finding at the north end, so we had a little bit of a challenge starting out. We backpacked from the Hominy Peak trailhead in the Jed Smith Wilderness, Targhee National Forest to the Rendezvous Mountain tram at Teton Village. The trip was in September so we hardly saw anyone else and the weather was clear until the last day. The high point of the trip was at Table Mountain, where we could look across Cascade Canyon at the Grand Teton peak, only about 2 miles away.

Here's the link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/k3Sj6CJY4_Y

Remember, it's not just a picture (video), it's a story!

Grand Teton cloud eruption!

On the horizon is the towering peak of Grand Teton, as viewed from the west looking east while still in Idaho. This caught Rick's attention because of the way the clouds appeared to be coming out of the peak, as though it was a volcano spewing ash. It reminded him of pictures of volcanic eruptions, so he pulled over to the shoulder of the road to get pictures of the peak and the clouds. There is another string of cloud reaching toward the ground to the right in this image, as well. This also helps to show that the west slope of the Teton Range is gradual and leads up to the peaks, unlike the eastern, more famous side of the range that is known for not having foothills at all.

The camera is a Canon Rebel EOS xSi at f/8, 1/180 sec, ISO 200, focal length 55mm (about 86mm equivalent).

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Cloud stream over the Tetons

Clouds streaming over Grand Teton and other Teton peaks.  This image was taken from the Windy Point Turnout along the Teton Park Road in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

We used a welder's glass held in front of the camera's lens to induce a very long shutter speed in order to give the clouds a chance to move through the frame.  Because of the welder's glass, the original image took on a strong green tint, which we corrected with photo editing software.

The f/stop was 16, exposure was 114 seconds, with the ISO at 100 and the 18-55 zoom lens set at 31mm.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Le Trois Teton - Grand, Middle, and South Teton as seen from Hurricane Pass, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

In Grand Teton National Park, most visitors view the Teton Range from the east and look westward. In 1999, Bob and Rick backpacked nearly the length of the Teton Range on the west side. Along the way, we viewed the highest of the Teton Range: Grand, Middle, and South Teton to our east. Along this route, we crossed over Hurricane Pass in the afternoon and had the range illuminated from the west as we looked eastward.This trip took 5 days and we covered around 55 miles, ending at the Jackson Hole Resort and taking the tram down to the valley.

It's not just a picture, it's a story!

Rainbow over Leigh Lake, Grand Teton National Park, 1975

In 1975, we were hiking in Grand Teton National Park up Cascade Canyon, over Paintbrush Divide, and then down Paintbrush Canyon. We had just about every kind of weather condition that day. Sunny and clear when we started, cloudy later on, rain, some sleet, snow when we crossed over Paintbrush Divide. On the way down Paintbrush Canyon we saw rain clouds precipitating to the east and then this rainbow appeared over Leigh Lake. The bands of light and dark added depth to the image, plus the colorful rainbow really stood out. By the time we got back to our car, we were so sore we could hardly move, but it was worth it.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.