Photographically speaking, if given the choice, I'll take low pressure over high any day of the week: low pressure has a much greater likelihood of producing interesting conditions.

For much of the past few weeks, Teton Country has been under a series of high pressure domes. Overall, it's been warmer than average with lots of clear skies, and it's also been quite dry.

That said, a little window of unsettled weather which moved through the area over the Independence Day weekend created some nice variety.

It rained on the night of the 3rd and throughout the morning on the 4th, ushering in much cooler temperatures. More scattered precipitation followed in the afternoon. Between showers, though, the sky was filled with fast-moving, lovely cumulus clouds.

My weather apps weren't in agreement about what July 5th would look like, which left my plan regarding a sunrise location up in the air. Though the day dawned with mostly clear skies, there was a great deal of mist/steam over Jackson Lake courtesy of overnight temperatures which had dipped into the 30s.

I ended up at the dam since the mist was heaviest in that general vicinity.

Though the skies were mostly clear as darkness lifted, clouds quickly began forming over the mountains, some of which contained rain. As the sun prepared to rise, there were more than enough clouds to pick up color. At that point I made a series of panoramas (one of them is posted above). The scene was beautiful, but wanting to do more with that mist, I experimented with different compositions.

For this next image, I went tighter and used a large rain cloud that had moved into position above Mount Moran to anchor the shot. The color temperature is still warm since the sun had not yet risen very high.

Clouds continued to form to the south, all drifting northward, so I decided to hang around and see what would happen. After a while they started to climb much higher and looked more ominous. No subtlety here; rain was on the way.

In the next photo, the sky is the focal point. More of the frame is devoted to it than the rest of the landscape. The play of light and shadow, coupled with visible movement - the arc formed by falling rain - was quite lovely. This was a mixed bag of conditions: mist over the lake, a little bit of fog, and those wonderful clouds overhead.

This is also a great reminder not to be in too much of a hurry to put the camera away. The scene became more interesting well after the sun came up.

Light showers passed through the valley throughout the day, interspersed with blue skies. The only challenge was how quickly changeable the conditions were. I got lucky and made some good choices about where to go and when to be there.

This wonderful gift of low pressure was fleeting. Sunny, hot and dry conditions have returned; high pressure is firmly in place and looks as though it's prepared to stick around for a while.

In Local News

Green Status
Some of you have asked whether it's still green in the park. Surprisingly, the answer is yes - and the rain on July 4th certainly helped. You can see from the photograph above, taken from Elk Island in the middle of Jackson Lake on Saturday, that green season is hanging in there. Wildflowers are also prolific this year, which has been fantastic. It's dry again now, though, with extremely low humidity (single digits). If I were a betting person, I'd put money on this being the end.

Grizzly 1063
Recently I shared the sad story of Grizzly 1063's three cubs. Following a "hard hazing" by the NPS, cubs and mama were separated, which led to the death of two of the little ones. Without their mother to protect them, they were cannibalized by a male grizzly. I'd read that there had been a subsequent sighting of 1063 and her sole surviving cub, indicating they had reunited, but I'm not sure that was accurate; lately the yearling has been seen on its own - a bad sign.

Last week the youngster was hanging around Colter Bay. A trail I was on Friday evening ended up closing because the little one was nearby. By Saturday, they had translocated the poor thing to the other side of Jackson Lake, which is another part of its mother's home range, hoping to teach it that there is more habitat available to it than the heavily human-populated Colter Bay.

The whole saga is heartbreaking. The cub is only one year old, without its mother, and now in what could be unfamiliar surroundings.

Clearly, hazing can save the bears from harm i.e. getting onto roadways, but it seems in this case the park service might have been far too heavy-handed. This aggressive action could ultimately be responsible for three grizzly deaths.

Teton Pass
The pass has been fully repaired and reopened with the new roadway completely operational; asphalt on the detour which was in use for the past year has been removed. If you didn't know the temporary roadway had been there you might not know it had ever existed looking at it now. Kudos to WYDOT, Evans Construction and Ames Construction, all of whom have done an amazing job from the get-go.