11
Travelogues
2017 Summer Trip

Wednesday, June 7

Grand Tetons

We got up early and drove to Oxbow Bend before the breeze picked up. There were no clouds in the sky, so even with the lake creating perfect reflections, the images were pretty blah.

Oxbow Bend

I wanted to shoot the reflections of the Tetons in a small reflecting pond near the base of Shadow Mountain, but the pond was completely dry. No reflections this year.

We continued up Shadow Mountain to a ridge where we could look straight across at the Tetons. We found some mule ears and some aspens to use as a foreground and began shooting. A man and his wife sat in chairs and watched from their "dispersed camping" campsite. They had a million dollar view from a free campsite.

Shadow Mountain

We drove back down Shadow Mountain to the inner park road to check out String Lake and Jenny Lake. I wanted to scout the area so I could shoot sunrise from this area later in the week. When we drove to our favorite spot to shoot sunrise at the water's edge of Jenny Lake, we discovered the trail from the overlook to the lake is now closed and that shot is lost. It looked like they had a small landslide and they chose not to fix the trail.

The sky was completely overcast by this time, so we returned to camp. Clear or partly-cloudy mornings turning into overcast afternoons was a pattern that would repeat itself daily.

We salvaged our disappointing photographic day with a trip to Bubba's in Jackson. I went to Bubba's on my first trip here almost 30 years ago, and we've been coming back any time we're in the area. Our meals certainly didn't disappoint us. We're hoping to return to Bubba's later in the week.