Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

The snow-dusted summits of the Teton Range peek from behind early-morning low clouds above a row of bright autumn aspen trees along Oxbow Bend on the Snake River in this photograph of Grand Teton National Park. On calm autumn mornings such as this, the relatively warm waters of the Snake River and Jackson Lake collaborate with the cold air to form a thin layer of fog in this part of the valley. As the rising sun heats the air, this fog layer usually lifts and dissipates by mid morning. The jagged 13,770 summit of Grand Teton rises above the pine-covered moraine of Signal Mountain at far left. The dramatic escarpment of the Teton Range is the result of a huge block of the earth’s crust being shoved skyward as an adjacent block sinks into the earth. While the summits of these peaks loom 7,000 feet above the valley floor, total displacement along this still-active fault has reached an incredible 33,000 feet.