Grand Tetons

I was sitting at a bar in my hometown of Oxford Pennsylvania (there are only 3 of them) called the OTE. It’s a pretty small town south of Philadelphia and there isn’t much that separates the years when it comes to major life events for the area. When you go to high school here, you pretty much know everybody, and see a lot of familiar faces when returning home. I struck up a conversation with one of those guys I used to go to school with named Mack Welch. He was always on the quiet side and I didn’t know him that well, but after a few drinks and conversation talking about our desire to go out and explore more of the country, we looped our other friend Christian Buitron into the conversation and established a plan to visit and photograph grand Teton national park during the winter. 

I had been there once before when I was 15 with my family, and hadn’t been back since. I had only ever seen photos online of the area during the winter, and we wanted to see it ourselves. Little did I know this trip would create memories of a lifetime and build amazing friendships. The more I’ve gotten into photography and solo trips, I’ve come to learn that there are hours of preparation that need to take place in order to get the most out of a trip. We had a half assed plan, and I didn’t even bring a tripod. 

We had a general idea of what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go, but that was about it. We did manage to secure a rental car, even though we weren’t 100% sure on whether or not it had all wheel drive. After we left from Baltimore and landed in Denver, we were off to the races. I remember driving through Denver and thinking “who would ever live here? It’s so close to the mountains yet so far”.. I had no idea that not even two years later I’d be one of those people. 

We went and checked out the garden of the gods down in Colorado Springs then shot up through Rocky mountain national park. Being the terrible planner that I am, I led us there under the assumption that it’d look the same as it had during the summer time back when I was 15. You won’t be shocked to hear that it was very much not the same, we were pretty much the only ones there, and we only almost drifted off the road twice! But where my memory of RMNP was lost, the new amazing winter wonderland we found was found. 

We weren’t sure which roads were open, closed, or cleared out for us to drive on, but after some turn-arounds and avid map reading, we found a path to snowshoe up near Bear lake. It wasn’t until we made it above the tree line that more snow started falling and we realized that we had lost the path. Now, through the Air Force I had gotten lost by myself during SERE training, but with the frigid cold and lack of shelter, we decided turning around would be our best option. That truly was a day where cooler heads prevailed and the three of us recognized how well we worked together and just how exciting this trip was going to be. 

I had no idea what the winter roads of Wyoming looked like before making the trek across them, and even though I grew up with snow in the northeast, it was tasking to say the least. Winds whipping and realizing that whoever had that rental car before us hadn’t filled up the windshield wiper fluid, we made our way slowly across Wyoming. It probably didn’t help that we would make stops based on signs for lookouts, natural features, and animals on the side of the road, but we did alright. 

There’s something about having two people with you who you are just starting to get to know, a landscape as foreign as it is beautiful, and the excitement of everything that you see being new. Every day turns into a “why not check this out?” And it made the trip infinitely more enjoyable. It’s a beautiful approach I’ve tried to maintain throughout my adult life, and am forever thankful. Not that this trip was the first time seeing something new, but that we were able to share it with each other and appreciate it that much more. I firmly believe that ignorance is bliss, and I’ve never been accused of overthinking, but ignorance also extends to finding out new things and learning what you previously didn’t. We were just three young men doing just that; exploring our unknowns. 

The reprieve of having a family friend in the Jackson hole area blossomed into full force when we took the turn up the driveway of a house that was positioned right next to the snake river. Our host Sara came to greet us in that part of the world, and I’m not sure if elated captures the feelings we all had arriving there. He gave us the lay of the land and places she loved going to, finally allowing us to build the roadmap for where to photograph and what we wanted to see. And from 10pm snowshoe hikes where the moon shone as bright as the sun against snow to timber wolves crossing our path on snowmobiles, we saw it all. 

The bad thing about Grand Teton national park during the winter is that so many of the roads are closed, including the roads up to YellowStone national park. What that did for us, however, was force us to focus on what we could see, and gave us so much more time diving deeper into our surroundings. There is a lodge at the northernmost part of the grand Teton park, and apparently they don’t get too much traffic during the winter. So after a day of driving through the park and walking across the frozen lake shirtless, we took it upon ourselves to drink some beers with the staff at the lodge, solidifying my new favorite IPA as Pako’s. And as the sun was setting behind the grand Tetons, we were giddy with the opportunity to celebrate and capture that dying light with the excitement of a child running around Disney World. That was truly one of the best days of my life so far.

There are many more stories that go along with this trip, but I think I have made the point that taking those leaps of faith and an open mind are what build great memories. That’s why the photography portion of this trip was so pivotal. My great friend Mack tragically passed away a couple years ago, and I am still able to go back through our photos from that trip along with so many other time we got to get off our phones and explore places all around us, even if we didn’t have much of a plan or an idea of what we were looking for. Mack was a much better photographer than me, and every time I get to go out with my camera, I strive to relive the feeling of those moments we captured. To this day I would still say that he had an eye for capturing what he wanted and that I will always work towards having myself.

Good people are hard to come by and the case is even more so with great people. It’s important to appreciate and capture what you have right in front of you while you can; and that’s what I’ve been trying to do every day. Keep striving and reaching out for the things you want to experiment and accomplish, and cherish those close to you, including yourself. Don’t let the best version of you be someone you want to meet, rather embrace that person, and go achieve what you want in this life.