Northern Lights Over Jackson Lake

Northern Lights Over Jackson Lake

Earlier this week the aurora borealis were out in a pretty major storm covering much of the northern United States. I was up in the northern area of Grand Teton National Park and chose Jackson Lake as my foreground of choice, along with a few other friends. I was shooting Oxbow Bend at sunset and so as soon as the sun had set behind the Tetons, I made my way over to a spot along Jackson Lake I had already decided upon.

It started off a little fainter than we had expected based on what we were seeing throughout the day. Then sadly, rather than getting stronger, it only seemed to fade from there. I got the shot above shortly after daylight had faded and this seemed to be the strongest that the auroras were going to display. We stayed up till about 12:30am waiting for them to come back, but unfortunately, they never did.

The shot to the left came when we began to see them die down. We headed up to Jackson Lake Dam, just up the road, hoping a clearer view would give us something we weren’t seeing, but it was just as dim. I took that opportunity to at least get a few shots of the night sky as it was. The shot to the left was looking west toward the Teton Mountains and was able to catch a bit of the glow from the northern lights anyway. From there we headed to a warm location indoors to thaw out and check up on any updates before eventually succumbing to exhaustion.

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