Teton Evening at Schwabacher's Landing

I had decided to extend my stay in the Grand Tetons.  I kept discovering locations that would make good sunrise and sunset shots.  Also I wanted to see if I could get some good Milky Way shots over the Tetons.  For the most part the shots I was hoping for didn’t turn out but I got to see a lot of pretty places and a lot of animals and met lots of interesting people.  

The day started out with waking up at the hostel and getting on the layers of clothing necessary for early mornings up here.  I preceded to head into the park and went to Schwabacher Road to the lower landing.  I didn’t get the best shots possible because I arrived a little late but I am satisfied with what I did get.  I proceeded from there to the Snake River overlook.  Here is where one of Ansel Adams’ most popular photographs was taken.  Of course when he took the shot there wasn’t a road or lookout point to photograph from.  It was a nice location.  The trees there though have grown in such a way that you can’t see most of the bend anymore.  I did decide however that I would try to come back there and get some sort of sunset and possibly night shot.  I met a really nice guy at the lookout point and we got to talking about photography and I gave him some pointers and he told me some things about Devil’s tower and some other spots he’d been to on his travels..  

After the Snake River Overlook I proceeded through Moran Junction and on to Oxbow Bend.  Here one can achieve some really great reflection shots of Mount Moran and see ducks and supposedly beaver although I haven’t seen them.  I took a few shots from this location.  I was really looking for some foreground elements though as I think the best landscape photography includes foreground, middle ground, and background elements.  I tried to wait for duck flying low across the water which I had see happen from the parking location, but that wasn’t happening, so I thought about trying t skip a rock but none were flat enough to skip so I just settled for what I had already taken.  About the time I loaded up the car with my equipment two ducks flew by low on the water with perfect reflections underneath them.  It would have been an awesome photograph.

I left Oxbow bend and headed to Jackson Lake where I stopped at the Signal Mountain Lodge.  The have a boat dock there with some sail boats and I wanted to attempt to get a photo of the sail boats and the mountains.  After firing off a few shots in an attempt to get a sail boat by itself I proceeded to have breakfast at the Restaurant there at Signal Mountain.  I decided on the “Buffalo Bill” with a side of two eggs.  The Buffalo Bill is a dish of biscuits and elk sausage gravy and an order of hash browns. The tables were very close together and I was seated next to an older couple who were speaking what I thought was German.  This actually reminds me that I have noticed a good portion of the people I have seen in the parks are actually foreign tourists.  I would say nearly half.  I even heard tours given in Monument Valley in french.  I didn’t realize our national parks were so popular abroad.  Anyway, back to the story.  The couple ate and interacted in their native tongue and were quite pleasant.  The view out the window of the restaurant was beautiful and while the couple got were waiting on their check the woman said to me she thought the view was pretty (in english of course).  We began conversing and I found out the lady and her husband were from Switzerland and I told her that I thought I had ancestry from there.  When I told her my last name she was surprised and and conversed quickly with her husband who did not speak much english as I gathered.  It appears my last name is fairly common in switzerland although they pronounce it “shtom” their is even a Stammheim there which I knew and she said I could go there and look at books on the Stamm family.  She said Stammheim was a nice city with vineyards on the slopes and that it was near the Rhine.  It has me interested in doing some research when I get home.  I can definitely trace my family back to Germany on my father’s side but that’s as far as I have been able to trace so far, I haven’t put a lot of work into it yet.  I told them where I was from and told them near Nashville because few know Cookeville although some people I have met on my journey do know of Cookeville.  When I said Nashville the man looked at me and said “Elvis!” I explained that was actually Memphis and that Nashville was famous for Country Music while his wife translated.  We wished each other pleasant journeys and they left on their way to Jackson, Wyoming.  

I was feeling quite tired after such a heavy breakfast so when I saw the turnoff for Signal Mountain Summit I proceeded up the mountain.  On the way I saw my first moose of the journey, a large female.  It was a narrow and winding path and it was in a curve s I decided not to stop and continued on to the summit.  It was coming on to noon by the time I reached the summit so I decided to nap in the car.  I nodded of in the shaded parking facility for about 30 minutes to an hour.   After waking I checked out the summit viewpoint and then drove down the mountain.

Next I went to String Lake.  It’s the lake that connects Jackson Lake and Jenny Lake.  It’s not very deep and because of the glacier water and melted snow it is very transparent.   It was a very pretty location and I thought I might do some sunrise shots there the next day.  I relaxed at String Lake and just watched the canoes go by as well as watch the chipmunks and listen to the birds.  I then headed down a little further to the Jenny Lake Overlook and spent some time there.

After that it was time to visit the visitor’s center and get my passport stamp and purchase the sticker and whatever else caught my attention.

It was now getting on towards sunset so I headed back to Schwabacher’s Landing to shoot some sunset shots.  While hiking back to a pond location to shoot the sunset I ran into Rick from Louisville, KY.  He had been to the location in the morning and had seen a moose and her yearling bull, and was hoping to see them again.  I also met Ron from Massachusetts and we talked camera and gear and shooting locations for a while.  Rick’s friends, Ron and Nate, from his Louisville camera club showed up from where they had hiked further back into the area to see if they could capture a glimpse of the moose.  Rick and Ron (from Massachusetts) decided to head back, as they were leaving a ranger led group showed up as this was a good location for moose spotting.  I talked to Ron (from Louisville) and Nate while we waited and they gave me some heads up about Realfoot Lake and told me I could join them the next time their club went to shoot there.  I learned a lot about their camera club.  They are mostly a shooting club with 2-3 outings a month.  They also have to meetings a month, the first one is a photoshop class the 2nd is a regular meeting.  I really enjoyed their company and was glad I ran into them.

The moose showed up and was fairly close but the ranger’s group got excited and it bolted further back into the swamp.  They stuck around for 15 minutes and then everyone cleared out including Ron and Nate which left me alone with the moose.  It finally started coming closer but it was getting almost too dark to photograph.  I got some shots but they will likely have a lot of noise.  By the time the moose was close enough to get real good photos it was just too dark to get anything.  Oh well, perhaps next time.