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I sit listening to the furious wind and rain pounding the sides of my office in our fifth wheel as I look out the window to see the sandstone peaks of Badlands National Park. Unsure exactly where this post will go, but I will title it once it has taken its direction.

Mountain Goat and I are finally on our first real trip with our new fifth wheel, which we moved into on Christmas Eve 2024. With some health concerns addressed and the sale of our sticks-and-bricks home closing serendipitously at the same time, we left the certainty of her family’s property in Mendocino County, California, with our sights set on going to Iowa for warranty repairs on the fifth wheel and then to Wisconsin to visit her sister. We gave ourselves 3 weeks to make the trip, allowing for time to see some of the wonders that lie in-between that neither of us have ever experienced before this trip.

One of the stops we made along the way was in Grand Teton National Park. We set up camp in the Gros Ventre campground for 4 nights, aware that this was nowhere near enough time to see everything, but this trip is more about getting somewhere than seeing everything. We both understood this trip to be a sampler for places we plan to visit again with more time.

We watched the weather forecasts as we made our way to Grand Teton, expecting some afternoon rain on our arrival, and hoping to arrive and get set up before the worst of it hit. As soon as we finished getting the slides out and electric connected, the skies opened and it began pouring rain. Once we’d set up everything inside, I settled into my office, enjoying the view of the Teton Range out my window and the sound of the rain as I started working. A bit later I looked up, and noticed it was no longer raining, but snowing, which we hadn’t expected. I called out to Mountain Goat and we went out to check it out. This is the first year since we’ve been together that we haven’t been to the snow (between selling the house, health issues and getting the fifth wheel), so this was an especially special treat. Our dog, Emma, had never seen snow, and we suspected she would hate it, but we wanted her to experience it. We got her outside, and she immediately dove under the fifth wheel.

Enjoying a little snow under the front of our home

Emma looking outside longingly, wishing for drier weather

We enjoyed the remainder of the first day at Grand Teton in the trailer, watching the snow and grateful we weren’t driving in it. The next morning, some of the snow had stuck, though the roads were clear, and the remaining snow was slowly melting. We decided to go check out some of the staples of Grand Teton.

Our first stop was Mormon Row, where the iconic T. A. Moulton barn and other sights are located. I was excited to photograph something I’d seen captured by so many photographers. Seeing it in real life, I understood why most photographers shot it from about the same angle, as the Tetons were behind it to the right, and the other angles provided backdrops that were far less spectacular. I wondered how I could capture something unique, and chewed on that idea for awhile as I shot the standard angle in a few different ways.

Google Image search of T.A. Moulton Barn in Grand Teton National Park — A Google Image search of T. A. Moulton Barn shows images all taken from the same angle

T.A. Moulton Barn, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming — My first image of T. A. Moulton Barn

T. A. Moulton Barn, Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming — T. A. Moulton Barn captured from a different, less exciting angle (see why no one takes it this way?), with a bit of lingering snow on the roof

Our next stop was Jenny Lake. I stopped at the creek that drained the lake for shots of the creek with Grand Teton behind it, experimenting with my circular polarizing filter (CPL) to see how it would impact the water’s surface and the rocks along the creek bed.

We continued to the lake, with the soaring peaks of the Tetons behind it. We walked along to a few viewpoints along the lake, walking through patches of melting slow along the way.

Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming — Jenny Lake and the snow-capped Teton peaks

I took some shots with each of the lenses I carried with me, eventually switching to my 60-600mm Sigma lens to capture some shots of the mountains and their features.

Elusive Grand Teton’s summit is barely perceptible in the clouds

From there, we headed back to camp for a bit. Mountain Goat was itching to build a campfire, so she and our dog, Emma, hung out outside while I went back to my office to start offloading photos from my camera to my hard drive.

I happened to look up just as Mountain Goat raced to get Emma back into the trailer, which I suspected could only mean one thing- a moose. We had been warned at check-in that the local moose were not fans of dogs at the moment and to keep them away. I looked out my window in the direction of Mountain Goat’s gaze, and sure enough, there was a moose a few yards away. I abandoned my office with my camera in hand, quickly and quietly grabbed my zoom lens and tripod and made my way to where she was outside. I started snapping pics as we observed a bull with antler buds and a cow grazing on the vegetation in our site and the site next to us, occasionally snorting, similar to a horse. The woman in the motorhome in the next site over was taking a video with her phone from the passenger seat, and she mouthed, “Oh my god!” to me while I snapped photos, and I returned a smile and nodded enthusiastically. Eventually, both moose laid down in the grass, far apart but back-to-back, quietly observing their surroundings.

Cow moose snacking on sagebrush in our campsite

I snapped a few more shots of them relaxing in the grass, then made my way back into my office, grabbing a little more video of them from inside before they made their way out of our site.

I returned to my office to finish offloading photos and started sifting through them, shaking my head at our luck having two moose in such close proximity.

Shifting my focus to other photography opportunities, I looked up the moonset and sunrise times for the next morning, hoping I might have a chance to capture the Milky Way. I knew the moonset would be close, and with the moon as full as it was, I’d need to wait a good hour or so after the moonset to get good images of the Milky Way. I’d also need to get them at least an hour before the sunrise. It appeared I might have a tiny window right at 5AM to try to get something, so I headed to bed early anticipating getting up early, with hopes of catching the Milky Way, and planning on a sunrise shoot in any case.

Grand Teton, Part ONE

Grand Teton, Part TWO

Rarer than a rainbow