Grand Teton National Park – Page 2

Love

After falling in love in Yellowstone with the colors and patterns of Mammoth Hot Springs, later the moss of the rain forests of the Olympics, then the bark of the ancient redwoods of California, I finally merged my love of small details in a larger landscape with another and greater love, the wildlife I had been shooting for years.

I dreamt of taking this picture for many months before my trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone, thinking I might get a shot at it in Yellowstone, but instead I found a bison herd near the road on my last morning in the Tetons and was able to photograph from the safety of the car. Afterwards I was so nervous I could barely bring myself to review the pictures on the camera to see if I had gotten the picture I so hoped for. When I came to this picture of one of the bulls, I stopped worrying and left for Yellowstone full of joy.

📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4X
🗓️: September 28, 2011

Pronghorn to the Rescue

My plans for this fall’s trip to Wyoming were literally made at the last minute. I had planned to take the week off but wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. It had been a while since I had been to Yellowstone & the Tetons and I was itching to get back, but I was also worn out and not sure I was up to the drive. Then I checked the weather and it was supposed to be unusually sunny and hot, which if you’ve followed along here you know is not my favorite photography weather.

I decided to sleep on it and in the morning made my reservations for Wyoming, starting off in the Tetons and finishing up in Yellowstone, then headed out the door. And it was unusually sunny and hot during the day, despite being cold at night, so I had to deal with 40 or 50 degree temperature changes from when I started hiking in the morning to the heat of the day. While the sunny skies did provide good viewing of the Teton range at sunrise, the park staff had been doing controlled burns and a smoky haze hung around in the valley — not thick enough to be interesting, but enough to ruin the clarity of the pictures. The fall colors seemed to be late in arriving and while some of the aspens had turned, many were still green. And my chronic stomach problems flared up several times on the trip, though fortunately never on the trails despite one close call.

But the worst of it was, I wasn’t seeing much wildlife, and so while I was grateful for the chance to visit this wonderful part of the world, the trip wasn’t ranking very highly compared to some of my other visits. But then on my last night in the Tetons I discovered this male pronghorn in the evening light and things started looking up. The next morning I found the bison herd and my mood got even better.

Yellowstone was hit or miss the first few days too, but the last day turned out to be one of my favorite days in the park, ever.

A long way of saying, I’m glad I went.

Mouth of the Tetons

One of my favorite bison pictures from my Wyoming trip, a bit of a whimsical portrait. Even though bison are one of the more dangerous animals in the park, as long as you give them their space they are mostly just dangerous to the grasses of the meadows.

Baby Horns

I love, love, love the tiny little horns of a bison calf and finally had the chance for a close-up in the Tetons.

Boomers

Red squirrels are known as boomers in some areas, a name I love although I don’t know its origin — these little chatterboxes certainly aren’t quiet, but boomy isn’t quite how I’d describe their shrill alarm calls.

I’ve toyed with the idea of having a series of “Greatest Hiking Days Ever” posts that trace in pictures and words my favorite days on the trails from start to finish, and if I do, September 27, 2005 would be a fine place to start. It started with a lovely sunrise in the Tetons, then black bears dining on huckleberries amidst the fall colors, followed by a wonderful hike into Death Canyon where I met this red squirrel and chipmunks and blacktails and even my first pikas, and ended with a moose family in Willow Flats.

There are many things to love in parks as spectacular as Yellowstone and the Tetons, and perhaps squirrels shouldn’t be so high on my list, but I love the chatter and scoldings that rain down from the trees as I hike the forested trails. I heard almost no squirrels on my last trip there a couple of years ago, a personal anecdote in support of the controversial theory of global quieting. I’m not in a position to say if humans are playing a role or if the earth is naturally cycling from noisy to quiet, just that I missed my treetop companions and I hope they are there to welcome me on my next return.

Hard To Say Goodbye

I grew up in the eastern part of the United States. In the deciduous forests there, eastern gray squirrels and eastern chipmunks are your frequent hiking partners. While the Northwest has many things to offer, one thing I miss is the squirrels and chipmunks. Not that we don’t have them here, just not in the numbers I’d prefer. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even in parks as magnificent as the Tetons and Yellowstone, I’ll photograph just about every squirrel and chipmunk I come across — which is why no one likes to hike with me. And God help you if I see a newt.

The chipmunks in the Tetons and Yellowstone are the yellow-pine chipmunk, the Uinta chipmunk, and the least chipmunk, similar but different species to the eastern chipmunks of my youth and the Townsend’s chipmunks of my not-quite-youth.