3:45 am on day four and I was up and ready to go. We had planned a sunrise photo shoot in the park the night before, and I was chomping at the bit to get going. When I woke up it was still dark of course, and very cold. It was drizzling lightly and you could just make out the silhouette of the mountains. John and I debated about going and almost decided to just go back to bed, but we were awake and anxious to see what the light would bring. John and I packed the van with all the gear and went to knock on the students' doors. We convinced six out of twelve students to join us on our adventure. We were on the road by 5:00 am and headed to one of my favorite sunrise spots in Grand Teton National Park, called Schwabacher's Landing, which is a series of placid streams in the valley fed by the Snake River. The sky was full of stormy looking clouds that threatened to put quite a damper on our early wake up call. As the sun slowly filled the sky with color, the clouds parted just enough to reveal the peaks of the Tetons freshly dusted with snow. The view was constantly changing as winds pushed the clouds in front of the range. A giant rainbow appeared with a new front moving by. Afterwards, we took a tour through the Antelope Flats area and ran into a large heard of grazing bison. It was quite a spectacle, and we were all thankful for witnessing it.

We spent the afternoon working in the lab and John presented on his work before dinner. After dinner, I took a crew of students up into the park who weren't abe to make it for the morning shoot. I wasn't expecting very good light because the storms were pretty socked in, but once again, the light broke through and provided a beautiful drama to the scene. We found an obscure dirt road through the Antelope Flats and ran into all sorts of wildlife. At times, it felt like we were in the Serengetti. Pronghorned antelope, elk, and bison were all over the place. On our way out we ran into a bison jam of epic proportions. We parked the van, opened the doors and windows, and were literally surrounded by huge bison and their babies prancing around. What an incredible day! How can we possibly top this? Yellowstone tomorrow...