Behind the Shot: Fall on the Snake River
I wanted to highlight a photograph I captured a few years ago in Grand Teton National Park. The Tetons have always been one of my favorite places to photograph, and this particular image has a bit of a story behind it.
I had spent the previous week camping in Yellowstone National Park and was planning to head south to the Tetons for the next part of my trip. As my time in Yellowstone was coming to an end, a significant snowstorm was in the forecast, which convinced me to adjust my plans and head south a day earlier than I had intended. The storm eventually brought more than a foot of snow and closed all of Yellowstone’s entrances. Had I stayed with my original plan, I would have been snowed in at Yellowstone.
September in the Tetons sits right on the edge of the seasons. The days can still feel like fall in the valley, with aspens beginning to turn gold against the dark evergreens, while the higher elevations are never far from their first snow. When I reached my campsite, the mountains were still bare. I set up camp that evening knowing the storm was moving through the region, but I wasn’t sure what I would find when I woke up. Would the storm reach far enough south to put snow on the Tetons, or would the mountains look much the same as they had when I went to bed?
By morning, I had my answer. The storm had moved through overnight, leaving a fresh blanket of snow across the Teton Range. Below the peaks, though, autumn hadn’t gone anywhere. The aspens were still turning, the evergreens were deep green, and the valley floor remained untouched by snow. That line between the seasons was immediately what caught my attention.
I headed out that morning to an overlook above the Snake River. Low clouds still clung to the mountains, with pockets of fog settling into the valley below. The Snake wound through the trees toward the freshly covered peaks, and the first hints of gold in the aspens broke up the greens along the river.
That combination is what has kept me coming back to this photograph. There’s a lot of the Tetons in one frame—the Snake River, changing aspens, evergreens, low clouds, and those unmistakable peaks—but it’s the weather that ties it all together. Fall was still unfolding in the valley while winter had made its first appearance on the mountains overnight.
I’ve photographed the Tetons a number of times over the years, and they remain one of my favorite places to return to with a camera. Familiar views rarely look exactly the same twice. Weather moves through, light changes, seasons overlap, and a place you’ve seen before can give you something completely different.
Had I stuck with my original plans, I would have spent that morning snowed in at Yellowstone. Instead, a change in the weather—and a change in my itinerary—put me above the Snake River with fresh snow on the Tetons and fall still holding on in the valley below.