Signal Mountain is a 7720′ summit that is a great vantage point to view the northern end of the Teton range. I had been here many years ago to photograph sunrise with my large format gear. I wanted to come back and explore it again.
The View from Signal Mountain
There are so many viewpoints for the Teton Range it’s difficult to decide which one to shoot at any particular time. Signal Mountain has always held my interest since it gets you up above the trees. We decided to make the drive for sunset and see what developed. The clouds were pretty heavy so it was a gamble as to whether any nice light would come through. The drive up is a nicely paved road with the typical tight turns of a mountain road.
When we got to the lookout there were few people there and it was windy. We still had an hour plus before the light might get interesting so I left the gear in the car and we scouted out places to set up. It turned out that this particular spot was where I had shot from many years prior. I recognized the view after we had been there a bit. So I went back to the car, grabbed the camera gear, and got set up. As sunset neared many more people showed up. There was lots of discussion among folks comparing notes as to where they had been, where they were going, and how bad the smoke had been from the western fires. We ran into quite a few people that had left Montana, Oregon and Idaho because the smoke was so thick. Thankfully, it had cleared here and visibility was quite good.
Fortunately the sun broke through the heavy clouds and cast its warm glow on the scene in front of us. As it started to grace the mountain tops and cast nice beams of light out across the valley the discussion quieted down. People were focused on the scene and working their cameras to try and capture the moment. Sunsets over the Grand Teton Range can be a little difficult to shoot. You’re facing directly west into the sun so getting any detail in the mountains themselves is difficult. In this case I had to blend two exposures together to adequately capture the foreground and the sky.
Color change here is slowly starting to materialize. The cold weather that blew in recently will hopefully trigger things into a higher gear. With snow already appearing at the higher elevations, adding some fall color will make for some nice scenes.
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