Grand Teton NP, WY
Working our way north took us to the Grand Teton national park. Even though we’ve been there four times there are places we haven’t photographed. Now that Lindsay is starting to take landscape pictures, he wanted to try the Mormon Row barn at sunrise. There had been forest fires in the north for a few weeks now and the day we arrived the smoke was quite strong and was covering up the mountains so I wasn’t very optimistic that we would get good pictures. While we didn’t really need to be there long before sunrise, you do need to get a spot as it’s very popular. And whoever gets there first sets the line that you can photograph from. So if someone is using a very wide angle lens, they are going to be further back than I would want to be. Going up the back road is full of pot holes and can be really messy if it's been raining but it's significantly shorter than going by the sealed road. Arriving just before sunrise was a bit slack but we did manage to get a good spot. The clouds and a tree were stopping the sun from throwing light on the barn until quite late and by then there were only a handful of us left. Most people left way too early and missed out on the great light.
We stayed in the Gros Ventre campground again which has been outsourced to a private company by the national parks, everything is the same but the prices have increased considerably. This campground is the closest to the town of Jackson Hole and the Mormon Row and about ½ an hour to Schwabachers' Landing.
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| the famous Mormon Row barn |
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| This barn is not as popular but is only just up the road |
That afternoon we drove around the park, looking at Oxbow Bend which might look good in the fall but just wasn’t doing it for me this time. We also looked at Schwabachers Landing, which I had heard about but never got to. There are a number of spots to take good shots. Lindsay wanted to try the barns again which would mean he would have to drop me off really early so that he could get to his location. He liked the area around Beaver’s Dam at Schwabachers Landing, so I suggested he shoot that and I would shoot the area near the entrance. The next morning were so many photographer’s there when we arrived that I nearly couldn’t find a spot to put my tripod. This would now have to be my favourite spot in the Tetons, it is just gorgeous. In the fall apparently there can be 40 photographers at the Beaver Dam, it really is the pick of the locations. Most of the trees seem to be evergreen so it can’t be for the fall colours, I just think they happen to be here so come to shoot at the landing.
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| Schwabachers Landing - Beaver Lake |
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| Schwabachers Landing - near the carpark |
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| Along the road to Gros Ventre campground |
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| we never got to see him completely out of the bushes |
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| how do you like my rack? |
I had thought of going to Mount Rainier, but it really isn’t the best time of year for landscape photography, so we decided to add the days to Bella Coola. On the way through Washington we drove past a field of sunflowers which I would love to get pictures of, but we were one or two weeks late as the flowers had already started to droop as the seeds were ripen and the heads get heavy. It also makes it harder for the birds to steal the seeds!
The more we drove north the heavier the smoke became. There were forest fires in Montana, Washington and Oregon. Canada wasn’t much better as they had many fires too.
Our border crossing was blissfully uneventful. Only two questions: did we have firearms or alcohol. No and yes. We read out our list of wine as we always do, heaps more than the limit but no problem, off you go.
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| an iPad photo as my camera was locked in our trailer in storage - this is their dock. iPad's don't do good sunsets |
We caught up with our friends Cameron and Christine who now live in Lac La Hache – it was their house on Vancouver Island that we stayed at three winters ago. Their house is right on the lake with wonderful views and a boat pontoon right at the bottom of their garden. Cameron had organised for us to leave our trailer at a nearby RV Park for $5 a night and we stayed downstairs which is a self contained space which they sometimes rent out on AirBnB. It was great to catch up with them again. We took a spin in his boat looking at all the lakeside homes and picked fresh corn up at Soda Creek. Cameron had managed to get a virus that was hijacking his windows laptop everytime he went onto the web. It wasn't that easy to eradicate so Lindsay took his laptop with us to work on it when we went north. After many hours and trying numerous things, the most simple solution was to create a new logon and transfer all the files over. So glad we don't use windows machines anymore.
28/8/2017-30/8/2017
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