Frozen Solid At Jackson Hole

We headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming looking for snow.  We don’t get much snow in Houston so we traded in some airline miles and headed west.  And we found it along with some record breaking cold weather.  Coldest unofficial recording we had while there was -17F.    Snow has been falling at a record breaking pace this season.  At least until we arrived.  It stopped on Friday and we arrived on Saturday.  It didn’t start again until the day after we left.

But we weren’t to be disappointed.  The lack of falling snow didn’t matter with the temperature never getting out of the teens and a partly cloudy sky keeping sun’s warmth from melting it.  Piled up several feet high.  Since neither of us ski we booked the trip to focus on photography.  It was a fabulous experience.

The vistas were magnificent.  And the wildlife sightings were great for both professional and amateur photographers. 

It seems that most visitors to Jackson Hole in winter came to take advantage of the excellent ski conditions.  Auto access into the national parks is limited as most roads are closed for the season.  We encountered very little traffic or people on our trips out to the elk reserve, Grand Teton National Park, and looking for moose over to Utah.

There was little to no competition for space to set up a tripod to catch a family of Golden Eagle working over the carcass of a goat.  The elk heard had migrated close the access road into the back side of the reserve and only a handful of cars sought them out.  For a patient photographer with a patient wife the setting was perfect.

In researching the trip we found several guide services.  We selected one and it worked out extremely well for us.  Our guide knew where to find everything, including recluse moose and eagles.