What Is Schwabacher Landing And Where Is It?
Schwabacher Landing is a famous view along a bend in the Snake River in Wyoming. The Snake River runs through a lot of Grand Teton National Park. Schwabacher Landing is located within Grand Teton National Park. At Schwabacher Landing, the Teton Mountain Range towers above the Snake River and reflects in the river when the winds are calm.
Schwabacher Landing is a very popular spot to view and photograph at sunrise. As the sun rises, it paints the tip of THE Grand Teton and that paint spreads to the other Teton mountain peaks and slowly runs down the mountains. The entire scene reflects in the Snake River on a calm day. It is sometimes common to see moose at Schwabacher Landing as they walk in or along the edge of the Snake River.
While sunrise often provides the most spectacular view of the mountains and dancing early morning sunlight, sunset can be a good time too. The sun sets behind the Teton Mountain Range and as a result, the skies need to turn really fiery for a really good photo at Schwabacher Landing at sunset.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph Schwabacher Landing At Sunset?
If you want to go to Grand Teton National Park or the Jackson Hole area you’ll need to do a fair amount of planning. Like Aspen, Colorado, the town of Jackson, Wyoming is one of the richest and most expensive places to live in the United States, at least as far as mountain towns go. If you go to Aspen to photograph Maroon Bells, if you can’t get a campsite in the area (and they are challenging to get), it is really difficult to go there at any reasonable cost.
While the town of Jackson, Wyoming and the surrounding area is on par with Aspen, Colorado as far as expense, there are some cheaper options, more campsites and more national forest areas. In the Teton National Forest, you can just pull over and sleep in your car or camp in some places. The Teton Hostel in Teton Village is a semi affordable place to stay if you are going to Grand Teton National Park.
If you are going to fly out to see Teton National Park and Schwabacher Landing, you’ll probably want to fly into the Jackson, Wyoming airport. If you plan to go see Yellowstone too, you may want to fly into the Bozeman, Montana airport. An alternative to those two is the Idaho Falls airport which is smaller and may be less expensive. However you get to Jackson or Grand Teton National Park, you will absolutely need a rental car unless you plan to spend $1,000 or so a day for private tours everyday.
Once you get your travel and lodging all squared away you’ll probably want to dive through the main roads in Grand Teton National Park to get a feel for the place. If you are staying in the town of Jackson, you’ll have about a 25 minute drive out to Schwabacher Landing. Most of the road is a paved highway but the last half miles or so it a dirt road. The road is passable with any car but at times does have massive potholes that require some caution. It is not maintained and does close for the winter.
If you are going for sunrise you should plan to get there at least 20 minutes before sunset and potentially a lot earlier during the peak summer months. There are a couple parking areas but not a ton of parking at Schwabacher Landing. There is an outhouse there. There are a number of different good spots for photos and room for a fair number of people to setup with their tripods.
If you are going to photograph Schwabacher Landing at sunset, it will likely be a lot less crowded and much easier to park. Schwabacher is much more well known for sunrise photos and many more people go thee for sunrise.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo Sunset At Schwabacher Landing?
Like any other potentially awesome photo spot, you are never guaranteed to get a great photo at Schwabacher Landing. If you go to Schwabacher Landing for sunset the skies will need to get really fiery to get a sunset photo like the one in this article. From my experience, this doesn’t happen very often and it is hard to predict just by looking at the skies. If you can plan your day so that you’ll be driving by Schwabacher Landing at sunset instead of heading out there from the town of Jackson or Teton Village, you’ll save time, effort, gas money and the frustration of driving all the way out there just for sunset and coming away empty.
Moose sometimes wander through the Schwabacher Landing area any time of day. When I’ve seen moose at Schwabacher Landing it has often been in late afternoon an hour or two before sunset. If you are thinking about going to Schwabacher Landing for sunset, and will be driving out there from some distance away, you may want to get there an hour or two before sunset. Even if the skies don’t light up, Schwabacher Landing photos with moose strolling through or along the Snake River can be pretty awesome. The “Teton Moose Sunset Stroll” was on the cover of the National Park Foundation Calendar a few years ago.
If you go early and hope to get moose wandering through Schwabacher Landing you’ll want to carry your camera with you and probably not use a tripod. It’s good idea to use a tripod when photographing just Schwabacher Landing, however when moose walk through you’ll probably want to have more agility than a camera locked to a tripod will facilitate.
If you don’t get lucky with moose or just go for sunset, you’ll want to have a tripod since you’ll be shooting in low light conditions. If the skies get bright and fiery, the mountains will likely still be pretty dark and you’ll want to bracket a few shots for an HDR image that will enable you to balance the light and dark sections of the photo.
There are three areas around Schwabacher Landing that all make for good photos. The main area where this was taken is by the main parking area near the outhouse. The second area is a hike around to the right to a beaver pond. The third is about a tenth to a quarter mile before you get to the main parking area. There is a small parking area in the third spot. All are good photo spots.
Ideally when you photograph Schwabacher Landing at sunrise or sunset you’ll want to try to go when the winds are calm to facilitate an awesome reflection scene. In addition to trying to guess if the skies will light up, you’ll want to look at the wind forecast at sunrise or sunset if you want to get reflection photos.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing Schwabacher Landing At Sunset?
When photographing Schwabacher Landing at sunset, you’ll want to have a decent DSLR or mirrorless camera. You’ll want to pair that with a fairly wide angle lens. If you want to maximize the field of view in the photo, you’ll probably want something like a 17mm-40mm lens. You could get away with a 24mm-105mm lens too. If you have both lenses or can bring a zoom range of 17mm to 105mm with you, you’ll have maximum flexibility no matter where you stand and not matter which viewpoint your choose.
For sunset and sunrise you’ll want to use a tripod since the lighting will be low. If you will use a circular polarizer as I do to minimize or enhance the reflections, that will slow down your shutter speed even more and make a tripod even more critical to have.
Some areas around Schwabacher Landing can be good for panoramic photos. Chances are you will park very close to where you will shoot so carrying heavy panoramic photo gear will not be much of a burden. There are few scenes around Schwabacher Landing that require a panoramic photo to capture but if you want to be able to make a REALLY large print, stitching multiple photos together for a panoramic view d Schwabacher Landing can facilitate that.
What Is The Story Behind This Schwabacher Landing Orange Sunset Print?
In 2017 I embarked on year 8 of road tripping around the United States and Canada to explore the national parks. After wandering around all over the place I ended up in the Jackson Hole/Grand Teton National Park area in the fall. I’d hoped to photograph the fall foliage in the Tetons in 2017. For much of the fall I slept in my car in the national forest areas around the Teton National Forest. Occasionally I’d setup a tent but not very often. It is a lot easier to just wake up and go than to have to pack up a tent every morning when camping in some random place in a dispersed area.
For a while that fall, it looked like the fall colors might be pretty cool. The summer had been dry but it looked like the fall foliage could still hold some promise. The dry summer and early fall seemed to cause the leaves on the trees to be a little more dry than usual.
Within a day after the leaves started to change color, a sustained wind storm howled through and wiped out most of the leaves on the trees. When there is no color on the leaves or even no leaves on the trees, there are still photo opportunities in the Tetons. The willows and other smaller plants can still show off some good color if you can find a way to incorporated them into your photos. The light always dances as sunrise and sometimes sunset in the Tetons.
Once the “peak” part of the autumn season passed, the lodging rates dropped down and I switched from sleeping in the car in random spots to staying in the Teton Hostel in Teton Village at Jackson Hole Ski Resort. It’s a perfect location for skiing Jackson Hole and it is the cheapest place to stay with a solid roof over your head. At that point, the per bunk rate in the Teton Hostel was $20/night plus taxes and fees. If you stayed 30 or more days then it was considered a lease and some of the lodging taxes went away. For a little more than $600 per month I could stay in Teton Village with up to 4 roommates. The Teton Hostel has a pretty big common area and basic cooking facilities. If you mostly just need a place to sleep, it is a great deal.
While there, I went out for sunrise every day the weather looked decent and the wind forecast was calm. After that I’d go drive around, look for wildlife (mostly moose and bears), go back and snooze for a while and then check the weather and watch the skies for signs of a good sunrise. Each trip from the Teton Hostel out to Schwabacher Landing was about 45 minutes each way so I tried to pick on the most promising days.
On this night, there was moderate fairly thin cloud cover during the day. Thin cloud cover and even haze can really help to boost the color in the skies at both sunrise and sunset. The wind forecast was dead calm. I decided to make the trek out to Schwabacher Landing after striking out a few times on prior nights. As you can see, the entire sky lit up with a brilliant orange color for a moment during the sunset light show before going through a few other colors went in and out, the sun set and the skies went dark. It was probably the best sunset I’ve ever seen at Schwabacher Landing. Once the show was over, I packed up the photo gear, headed back to the car and back to the Teton Hostel.
After making some food and going through some photos in the common area, I headed back up to the bed in the bunk room and drifted off to sleep mentally prepared to get up for sunrise the next morning.
What Formats Is This Schwabacher Landing Sunset Wall Art Print Available?
This Schwabacher Landing sunset print is available in sizes up to 40×60 inches on paper, canvas, acrylic, metal and wood. If you’ll be hanging the print in an area with diffused lighting, matte paper and canvas prints will have a classic subtle look on the wall. Anything with a glossy or metallic finish will have a brighter more vibrant look. If you will hang it in an area with bright natural or artificial light shining on it, your best bet will be matte canvas or paper prints. Anything with a metallic or glossy finish will likely be quite reflective.
If you’d like something for the bathroom, this image comes on high quality shower curtains that look fantastic in a bathroom. To complete the look, bath towels with the same image are also available. For the bedroom or living room, a Sherpa fleece blanket makes a great choice. They are super soft and comfortable and the prints come out very well. The blankets can be complimented with throw pillows of various sizes.
If you need something to carry your groceries and so other shopping now that plastic bags are being phased out, a Teton sunset canvas tote bag can be an excellent solution for a shopping bag replacement. Tote bags come in a variety of sizes with the largest one making a perfect beach bag. If you’d like something smaller and more subtle, you can get this image on a phone case for the latest Apple or Samsung phone. It will add a nice layer of protection and give it a great look too.
Finally, if you’d like a jigsaw puzzle or know someone who likes Teton and love jigsaw puzzles, this image can be printed on a 500 or 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The puzzles come in a nice cardboard box with a copy of the image on the box for reference. These are quite popular around the holidays and sometimes sell out in the lead up to the holidays.
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