One Word Photo Challenge: Wildfire

This photo was taken on my second trip to Grand Teton National Park. After four months of travel I couldn’t wait to see those shooting peaks that changed my geographic focus. But when I got there I could barely see them from the smoke of a wildfire. I was so disappointed but the colors of sunset brightened my outlook. Without the smoke this sunset would have been much different.

 9:00 PM, Mountain Time

9:40 PM, Mountain Time

 

For the Love of Geography: Pyramidal peak

Grand Teton

A pyramidal peak or glacial horn is a sharply pointed mountain peak usually with three sides. When three or more glacial cirques erode backwards to a central point they form a triangular peak, a pyramidal peak or horn.

 

Glacier National Park

The number of faces on a horn depends on how many cirques come together, however the most common is three or four. When a peak has four symmetrical sides it’s called a matter horn after the Matterhorn peak in the Alps.

Teton Range

Monochrome Monday: Mormon Row

Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Travel Theme: Unespected

I lived and traveled throughout the eastern and southern US until my mid-40s. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Appalachian Mountains. The mountains in this range are generally about 4000 feet above sea level and the highest is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at over 6600 feet. The Appalachians are the oldest mountain range in the world and such have experienced much erosion. They’re rounded, covered in green and often look like rolling hills.

In 2005 I finally took my first road trip west. The mountains dwarfed anything I’d seen in the Appalachians. The Yellowstone Ecosystem in general proved quite unexpected. I expected geysers and hot springs but soon realized there was so much more. As we traveled south down the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway my eyes and soul experienced a most unexpected spiritual awakening. We were already 8000 feet above sea level when we saw those towers of granite jetting into the sky for another 5000+ feet.

I haven’t been the same since. I even changed my geographic focus from human to physical, teaching geomorphology instead of culture and sacred landscapes. I’d seen photos of Yellowstone and the Teton’s but nothing compares to seeing such places with your own eyes. You can’t grasp the majestic nature of the American West, or any geographic region, until you visit yourself. No photo can adequately convey the treasures of this earth.

And while I did return, I still long to see them yet again.

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Check out other entries for the Travel Theme  challenge