Last year, I headed into the interior of Yellowstone National Park with another photographer. We were riding a snowcoach in and out, both times during a snow storm, and there was also plenty of fresh snow from days prior. On the rides in and out, the two of us noted how much more vibrant the trunks of the trees were in certain places. The snow built up on the branches and needles muted the greens of the pine and spruce leaving the brown of the bark the only really noticeable color. Reflected against solid whites and set against what the eye perceived as blacks, or at least dark tones, they popped out in ways neither of us had ever really noticed before. There were only a few ideal locations where it was really evident, but those unfortunately weren’t stops that the snowcoach was going to make.
Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a similar scene in Grand Teton National Park. It’s actually a little harder to find there because the wind that rolls off of the Teton Mountains typically blows trees clean. In areas where the wind doesn’t have as much of an impact, the trees aren’t quite dense enough to replicate the potential shots we saw in Yellowstone.
Earlier this week, I headed up into Grand Teton National Park and stayed with a friend for a few nights so that I could have a home base out of Jackson Lake Lodge, making a number of locations easier to get to, as I’ve often done this past year. My main objective was to hopefully come across some early grizzly bears, but came up short in that mission. While driving up to Flagg Ranch on one day, however, I noticed that there had been a good amount of recent snow and that there apparently hadn’t been enough wind to blow it all from the trees in a northern area of the park. I took advantage and shot a quick panorama in the hopes of capturing a scene that I had seen a year earlier. It certainly had all the same elements in place, and given that I’d say I’m happy with it, but I sometimes wind up kicking myself for not trying out more compositions, of which this is one of those times. Regardless, it still portrays the shot I was hoping for and in driving back up the next day, noticed that the trees were completely snow-free, so I was happy that I had at least stopped for the above shot.