Day One

To say the least, we have had an adventurous beginning to the start of the 2011 Jackson Hole Photography Workshop. Unlike previous years, students enrolled in this year's workshop are arriving from three different locations, including Boston, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. One student was rerouted three or four times, yet made it to Jackson shortly after her originally scheduled arrival time. Ten students were flying from Pittsburgh to Jackson with a stop in Denver. Unfortunately, their flight was cancelled around 10:00 PM and they were stuck in Denver. According to the airline the cancellation was due to "weather related issues", but this seemed like a ploy to keep from offering full hotel vouchers, especially considering other students were able to fly into the Jackson airport. So, despite all my efforts, the students were forced to spend the evening in the Denver airport and catch a flight into Jackson early the next morning.

I was worried about the students all night and afraid we would have to drastically change our first full day's schedule due to their probable fatigue. Fortunately, I was surprised at how well they all handled the situation. Everyone was still game for sticking to our original itinerary, just backing it up by about an hour. So, we went ahead as planned. First stop was the grocery store to stock up on some provisions. Next, I held a lecture session in the Cowboy Village Resort's pavilion room covering camera control techniques and discussing possible image making strategies.

Afterwards, we headed up to North Jenny Lake Junction in Grand Teton National Park to practice with our cameras. As you can see from the picture, the weather was a bit cloudy and cool. The Teton mountains received a record snowfall this year of over 730 inches, so there's still quite a bit of snow at a relatively low altitude. The rivers and streams are nearly above flood stage and the wildflowers have just begun popping up. We hiked around the north side of Jenny Lake for a couple hours and were treated with a couple of close encounters with bull moose and numerous marmots. We also saw herds of elk and pronghorn antelope in the sagebrush meadows. The day before, John and I saw a grizzly bear off the park road and a coyote. Due to the abnormal snow level, it seems the wildlife are hanging around at a lower altitude and easier to spot. This bodes well for us, especially on the trip to Yellowstone in a couple days.