We woke up at 5 to head out to Schwabacher Landing for sunrise photos. There is a glorious phenomenon called Alpenglow that happens riiiiiiiiiiiiiight before sunrise, it is stunning to see, and I think I can safely say that any photographer going to Grand Teton is going to try their hand at getting an alepnglow photo at Schwabacher Landing.
Courtesy of...uh...Fine Art America?
It is very, very beautiful. I expected it to be busy adjacent, I figured there were a lot of people here like Derek and I. I guessed there would be maybe fifteen photographers hanging out with us.
I was so fucking wrong. The wrongest I've ever been.
When Derek and I got to the parking lot, it was pretty full. I was shocked. We grabbed our gear and hiked the quarter mile to the river's edge, and I was a bit relieved to see only one other photographer there. He said good morning to us, we chatted a bit about shooting on film while Derek and I figured out our locations and set up our tripods, and I relaxed a bit about the crowd. It was truly chilly out, I think it was about 30 degrees, maybe in the very high twenties? I guessed that the lot was full because people were going to watch the sunrise from the safe warmth of their cars while the silly photographers froze their collective nippies clean off of their chests getting the primo shots outside. Sunrise was at 7:26 that morning, we got set up by 6:40, it was still pitch black out, and I was a little frustrated that I couldn't see where I was setting up. I was worried I would walk too close to the river and plop myself into the very very icy drink, so I set up in a place I thought was decent enough. Derek bravely set up closer to the river, I worked on framing in the dark without being able to see what I was focusing on or what I was framing up, it would have been delightfully chaotic if I hadn't also been preoccupied by the slow trickle of people starting to work their way into the same space we were in.
I want to be clear here that I am VERY pro people being out in nature. I think if more people experienced the outdoors, we'd have more people interested in its protection and preservation and care. I want people to see the aspenglow at Schwabacher Landing, I want them to want to experience the intense glory of nature in the real outdoors, not just in galleries or someone else's travel photos. I would have otherwise been delighted to see so fucking many people awake at such an early hour, huddled en masse by a river, just to see the sunrise on the Teton range...
except they were all so fucking rude about it.
I do travel a lot. Derek and I have been to a ton of places over the last twelve years, and we are always taking photos. Always. People are generally very very kind to us and other photographers. If other travelers see us (and others) with our gear on trails, or set up in locations, they come up and chat with us, but usually are very respectful about if they're in our shot, they usually ask us if they can squeeze by or if they're interrupting an active shot, we have never been bothered by people walking in and out of our frames with reckless abandon. It has never happened in twelve years of travel photos, professional work in outdoor venues, I have only ever encountered polite, talkative people who respect what I do and the space it takes to do it.
Does nature belong to me? No. No it does not, and I want to share it. I am HAPPY to share it. But what I am fucking pissed about is people not giving me a second thought and turning to look at me, and then standing right in fucking front of my camera. Right. In. Front. PLEASE understand that I am not actually implying that I deserve special dispensation because I have a camera, or that I am entitled to more space than other viewers because I have a camera. This is not what I think in the least. I am saying that it is good form to ask ANYBODY...camera or not...if you are in their way when you are in a group viewing something together. "Hey, am I ok to stand here? I don't want to get in your way!" This is something that is asked of me, it is something I have asked others, dozens and dozens of times, both before I had my cameras, and since. It is how to be a good citizen of the world, you just ask politely to make sure everyone can view the same thing you are there to look at. We all deserve equal opportunity to see a beautiful site/sight, and we should all be polite to our fellow viewers. It is what I expect of myself toward others, and what I expect of others toward me. Very reasonable, not at all entitled or insane, just consideration for others.
Something to note about me that may be surprising is I am not nearly as confrontational as people think I am. I am actually pretty confrontation averse, for a few reasons, namely that I will either cry uncontrollably, or I will rage enough to beat the shit out of someone. I cannot regulate my emotions, it's a problem, and it is a game of emotional roulette determining which version of me you're going to get. I am also reluctant to advocate for myself because I'm afraid of looking unreasonable. So if you want to keep me quiet, harm me in a public space, I'll likely stay timid as a mouse about it. If you want to provoke me, harm someone else. I will rage at you as fuck if you bother another person, but if you bother me, eh. I'll just cry silently.
Which is exactly what I did when the first person started running in and out of my frame without going around me, which there was plenty of room to do at this point and wouldn't have been at all an inconvenience. Derek was watching this as much as he could in the dark, and he later told me he could hear me sniffling as I cried quietly into my mittens, so Derek said for me, "hey man, it's rude to just walk in and out of someone's shot". Derek had another photographer behind him, set up not in Derek's way, and the guy had been walking in front of my frame to get back and forth to his friend that was set up behind Derek. The guy told Derek, "I know, I'm a photographer, too" and Derek was like, "then you know it's not ok to do what you're doing." And the guy didn't do it again. Derek wasn't rude, he was just straight forward. IT worked, I was relieved, and my relief would be very short lived, because this is when the non-photographer lookiloos started trickling in. I think, all things told, there were maybe 100 people watching this sunrise from the bank of the river. Of that 100, 5 of us had tripods and serious cameras on. Me, Derek, the guy behind Derek, the guy that was there before Derek and myself arrived, and one other guy a little further ahead of me, who set himself up in my shot, Derek's shot, and the photographer behind Derek's shot.
Light had started cresting a little, and I was able to adjust my frame to get everybody out of it...kind of...but not really, and I was so fucking upset about this. I was crying the hottest tears on a very cold morning, which is a sensory nightmare, and that was further overwhelming me, I couldn't speak up for myself and I had about twenty people just directly in my fucking way, I was really upset and frustrated because I wanted this picture, and I couldn't bring myself to ask everybody to just move a little over for me so I could adjust my shit and then they could take their same seats.
Derek and the guy behind him were vocally frustrated at the guy with the tripod in all of our way, and at about the same time, they started trying to gently get his attention to ask him to scooch a skosh. When he didn't pay attention, Derek got a little louder and more forceful and told him, "Hey man, you're in everyone's shot, can you move?" As he was moving, the lady next to me scoffed and was like, "calm down, it's public land, brother" and something in me snapped a bit. This lady has no idea how many of us are actually working here. Some people DO make a living selling landscape photography, there were so many art galleries in Jackson with photographers selling their prints to tourists (and making a killing, might I add...Derek and I talked not so jokingly about opening up a gallery in a national park tourist town), do I come up to her fucking place of employment and get in her fucking way? She doesn't know me, she doesn't know any of us, and public lands or not, there are still socially accepted etiquettes for sharing space with others. I turned to her and said, "ACTUALLY, it's pretty fucking rude to just get in a photographer's shot without asking if you're in their way or not." and she looked at me and said, "No, I know that, I know" and I shouted at her, "DO YOU???" She did not respond to me, she just walked away, but I know I looked frenzied and ready to fucking sock any ol' bitch in the fucking face, because it was cold, and I had been crying, so my face was crazy fucking red, my eyes were crazy red, and I was being LOUD. Drea enthusiasts may be fully aware that I will not actually harm a fly, but random blonde cunts in national parks don't have any such safety knowledge. And if she HAD said something else, I think I would have thrown the fuck down. I was so fucking angry at what this experience had been and I needed a place...or a face...to loose that anger onto. Hers would have done just fine.
Of the thirty people all up in my way, ONE woman was polite enough to ask if she could sit next to me and not be in my shot. I told Derek in the car a little later that she could have been all up in my shot, I would have moved heaven and earth for her because I was so happy that one person was polite. When her partner held up his cell phone to take a photo, she looked at me, saw his phone was in my shot, gently chastised him, and pulled his arm down to where she could tell it was no longer in my frame. Whoever you are, I love you, I adore you, and you may have my first born child, though they're 23 and a little world weary already. Not much of a bargain, but it's proper etiquette to extend the offer.
All of this is not to downplay the experience of sunrise. It was glorious, I'm all around glad I was there for it even if I did spend the full frozen hour on Schwabacher Landing crying and frustrated.
These photos are going to suck.
After alpenglow and proper sunrise, Derek and I walked back to the car where I vented my frustrations....still crying...and I was very worried that the entire day was going to be ruined by the experience of thoughtless people at Schwabacher. After all, I told Derek, we got there first. It isn't like we showed up late to the party and expected everyone to move for us. It is not an obscene thing to think that everyone who shows up after you should consider the people they're joining. As I was lamenting what I considered a deeply rude social experience, I saw something that perked up my entire day, very literally.
An eloping couple getting their wedding photos taken. It was 7:30 in the morning, it was BARELY 30 degrees out, and that gorgeous bride and her gorgeous husband were trekking out to a gorgeous, freezing location to get their gorgeous (I assume) wedding portraits taken. I loved seeing this so much, I have about ten photos of them walking to wherever it is they stopped at. A girlfriend of mine eloped to the Teton range and I sent her a photo and told her I was thinking of her. It definitely set my head space back to the right mindset to go do Jenny Lake/Hidden Falls. And for those of you playing the home game, the teton range doesn't disappoint after the sun has come up...it's just as dramatic and beautiful. Derek lamented not staying longer until the crowd thinned out a bit, and I get it.
It's public lands, brother.
Derek wanted to do a little bit of animal watching before heading off to Jenny Lake. We had chatted with a ranger the day before about where to go for moose and elk, he told us to go to a location that was...uh...closed. A bit delfated, we asked a different ranger, he gave us another location, and we headed there. We must have been on the right track, because we did spy a herd of elk on the way:
The other acceptable term is "gang".
The tell of The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, as I've mentioned, is cars parked on the road way and a gaggle of onlookers with scopes, phones, cameras, bare peepers, what have you, all pointed in the same general direction. On our way to our suggested location, we saw one such horde, complete with the flashing lights of ranger vehicles. We asked each other if it was critters or an accident and slowed down to rubberneck and find out.
It was critters. A moose family of critters, in fact. Derek pulled up to a space to turnaround, but by the time we got back, the moose had moved on. Disappointed, Derek made his way to who knows where. He didn't know where he was going, I didn't know where he was going, but as our travel luck decided, it put us right back in front of the moose. In a pretty private viewing area.
Get 'er, Ray.
I grabbed that photo of Derek really quickly and decided to get out and take a few pictures of the meese meeself. Knowing full well I am not a great wildlife photographer, but what are my chances at having this opportunity again?
Oops! All moose!
I did manage one decent photo out of this excursion, but I got bored of it far faster than Derek did. What DID keep my interest were the two absolute lunatic photographers way closer than the dictated 50 yards from the moose. Myself and a small crowd of five others watched in sadistic fascination as they crept closer and closer to a fucking unit of a bull moose
surrounded by two mamas and two babies. Derek mentioned coming for the moose and staying for the goring. Nothing happened to them, which kind of upset me, because people do not need to be that close to nature, and if they get dangerously close, nature should sort out the problem accordingly. When it doesn't, these idiots get emboldened and invite other bold idiots to ruin it for everyone. I hate these people.
Once Derek was done, it was time to head over to Jenny Lake. There is a waterfall at the "top" of Jenny Lake called Hidden Falls that you can take a ferry to. I had no interest in taking the ferry, I wanted to hike the lake. And I supposed it's just as well, because we arrived to find the ferry closed for the season.
Water water everywhere and not a boat to...drink?
This was a really nice hike, pretty easy as hikes up a mountain go. But my pack had been giving me some trouble, so I didn't want to take my tripod. Derek said I could just use his. When we came to the first edge of the lake,I wanted to take a photo, Derek found that he hadn't brought his tripod, and while I said that was totally fine, he opted to go back and grab it (which did end up being the right call for later). I popped into a little hideaway spot on the lake and thought to myself, "this would be an excellent location for sunrise photos, and I doubt anybody would be here".
That was exactly where I wanted to do sunrise shots the next day. When Derek came back, I excitedly told him what I was thinking, and he disagreed pretty soundly. I spent the duration of the hike talking him into it, and by the time we were heading back to the car, we had agreed (read: I forced my will upon him) to take sunrise photos on Jenny Lake.
I did quite enjoy this WANTED sign at the beginning of the trail proper:
Dead or alive!
The hike itself was quite nice, until my knee locked up so bad that Derek and a stranger had to help me get off of the trail and into a sitting position. I had been outpacing everyone, taking the trail at a great clip, enjoying myself immensely, and then BAM. My osteoarthritis icked into high gear and literally locked my knee up. It took about fifteen minutes for me to work it out so I could flex it again. I am Jack's vexatious knee.
Despite the hiccup, I really enjoyed the rest of the hike. I didn't really slow down my pace, which Derek told me was way too fast and I was missing the beauty, but...like...he was wrong. I've always been a quick-paced hiker, and I manage to take in the beauty just fine. Jenny Lake is truly lovely. It is so deep and so clear you can see all of the dead tree fall in it. I told my dad it reminded me of the dead marsh from LotR. I told Derek the same thing, but he didn't really care for the reference.
It was a pretty uneventful hike to the falls. My knee mostly behaved, though it was a teensy bit problematic, and it was pretty swollen the rest of the day. Here is my knee at the top of the falls, where I rested while Derek took photos of the falls.
I peed right behind myself!
It is swollen and red, you can tell, but it felt mostly fine. I drank some water, had a tiny IQ bar as a snack, and waited for Derek to be done. I think he fiddled around with getting a photo for about thirty minutes before he determined he wouldn't get the shot he was after, and we should head back down. We had chatted with a couple who asked us if we had done the loop before, and we said no, we hadn't, but it was only 7.3 miles if you did the loop versus 5 if you did the out and back with the falls as the stopping point. I asked Derek if he wanted to do the loop, and we both figured with my knee being finicky, the out and back was the safest thing. A little disappointing, I just love hiking, and I love being outside in nature doing nature bitch stuff. But in retrospect, I WAS for sure ignoring the severity of my knee. It hurt worse than I allowed myself to recognize, and I am lucky I didn't hurt myself in a lengthy recovering time type of way. As it is, I started doing the three mile trail here when we got back, and my ankle is kinda fucked, so I'm giving myself this week to rest it before I get back to hiking every day, cycling every day, and lifting weights four days a week.
The falls on the way down are just as pretty as the falls on the way up:
.jpeg)
but I was strangely not interested in trying to get "pro" photos of all of this. I just enjoyed the beauty of it in the moment, took some less than great cell phone photos, and put it all in my admittedly shitty memory. I assessed everything in the moment and didn't like the light, it isn't like I didn't have valid reasons for not unpacking my gear and giving it a go. I just...I wasn't feeling it. Derek kept telling me I was going at too fast a pace to be really enjoying the scenery, but that is far from true. It was beautiful, and I was taking all of it in. At a decent clip.
When we got back down to lake elevation, Derek wanted to try and get a photo of a sun bleached stump sticking up from Jenny Lake.
.jpeg)
He wasn't quite sure where he wanted to try and get the image, and I suggested a rock that jutted out into the lake. I had seen two people lunching on it on our way up, I figured photos from it might be kind of cool. He wasn't as keen, so I went over there and posted up in the rocks on the lake's edge and tried to get something. I haven't yet looked to see if it turned out. Stay tuned for future disappointment along with me!
I took a ton of pictures of the trail on the way up, it was just so pretty, but I feel like a geek trying to give a yard by run image rundown of the hikes we do, so I didn't. A couple won't hurt, though.
It was about 12 in the afternoon at this point, we had been dawdling about for far longer than I wanted to. I no longer had to pee, but Derek did, so we had to find a secret pee spot for him where nobody on this busier than I had assumed (a trend throughout this whole trip!) trail. We found the perfect place:
and I pretended to take pictures there while Derek peed, and then he finished and in order to be extra inconspicuous to an audience of none, HE pretended to take pictures there:
Spot the difference!
Except I think we both took actual photos there.
I really did not bury us in detailed plans for every day we had, I just had a thing or two to do and then the rest of the day was fair game. After Jenny Lake, we didn't have much going on, so Derek suggested we look for other sunrise spots, just in case. We drove out to Oxbow Bend and found the river must have migrated for the winter along with most of Jackson lake.
No river! Denied!
It was low, if not empty in most places. We did get to a place where there was observable river, though, and Derek wanted to wildlife watch. So he got out his camera, I did not, and we parted ways to look at separate things. Except these shroomies, those we looked at together.
Derek likely got some cute images, though.
I might need to add one of his to the final photo blog.
My cellphone does pull away, and that's because our Yellowstone friend bonked me with his tripod and turned my whole body when he did it. He clearly did it on accident, no harm done, just wanted to explain why I am uploading a video where only half the time is otter time. My other videos are over a minute, and I have trouble getting those to upload to Blogger.
I was getting hungry, so was Derek, and I told him we neeed to head to Jackson to find a grocery store to grab some dinner, even if it was just cheese and fruit and something like low carb bagels. I couldn't eat snacks for one more fucking night, I was hungry.
The overlook from Oxbow Bend. Your god, is it pretty.
So we found an Albertson's in Jackson, and right next to it was a liquor store. We wandered in to see if there were any local distillers we needed to get something to go with our Grand Pristmatic Rum. Turns out there was! We grabbed a gin and a local whiskey.
We put our booze in the car and walked into Alberston's and not two minutes into looking for food, I said to Derek, "I really want a pizza" and Derek was like, "OH FUCK YEAH". So we stopped looking for food, found a local pizza place, and put in an order at Hand Fire Pizza.
This summer's blockbuster: pizza!
Do you know how long it's been since I had pizza? I went vegan in 2017, I went keto in 2018. I haven't had a non-vegan pizza since 2017, I haven't had a pizza at all since 2018. And I was STARVING for a pizza now.
Derek got the Proscuttio Brah, which is a version of the classic Hawai'ian but with proscuttio instead:
leave your bad pizza takes at the door, Hawai'ian is delicious.
I got a vegan pizza on gluten free crust with caramelized onions, impossible ground smeef, butternut squash, and light tomato sauce.
My pizza, while a joyful experience, still manages to look depressing.
We stopped by the Bridger-Teton National Forest office to ask about free use permits for rock hounding in the national forest where we were met by a woman with the most extroverted, chaotic bisexual energy I've ever met. I came in and saw her giving flirt energy to Derek, and then she gave flirt energy to me. When I told Derek this, he said she just seemed like an exuberant person happy to share their knowledge with like minded people, and I was like, "nah, bro, she was bisexual and into both of us." I was so sure about that while speaking to her that I was super tempted to drop a hint about being bisexual myself to see if she'd play along and confirm my theory. I didn't, her sexuality is none of my business, but like...girl was a bisexual gremlin if I've ever met one. I salute you, forest lady. You will live forever in my heart.
Our pizzas did not make it to the hotel intact. I had three slices left, Derek and four, and both were completely totaled by the end of the our first hour back at our horrid little hotel. And that was pretty much our night. We DID bring in the gin we bought, we tried it, and found it to be so absolutely delicious that we returned to the liquor store the next day and bought three more bottles. No exaggeration.
No comments:
Post a Comment