Prospecting at 10,000 feet

As crazy as it sounds, I did get a few days in the middle of 2020 to bolt to Montana and roam my old stompin’ grounds. I had *one* tiny window of opportunity amid a year of non-stop work, and it happened to coincide with the date during which I had my buddy’s lake condo at Big Sky. After clearing it with my boss, I took it. And I didn’t come back empty-handed.

 

While roaming the top of Lone Peak (solo – my family wanted to do more kayaking, and I wanted to do both) I found two quarters in separate locations. Since there really isn’t much of – well, anything in the places where I was, I surmised that these may have been lying there for quite some time. They may have been dropped in the snow, then settled into the meadow with a spring thaw. Or they may have been dropped by hikers like me. Either way, the odds of my stumbling (figuratively) upon both of them probably weren’t very high.

I took a ton of photos and video, but that time in June was the last time I took off until Christmas. I haven’t had much time for photo editing, either, and what time I have had lately has been consumed with frost (okay, Rime Ice) photos. But sometime I hope to get to those pictures, too.

We now interrupt the frost for a pair of Parhelion photos

I was out early this morning and spotted some sundogs, so after running my errands I decided to roam around in the cold for a bit and capture them with my camera. It’s been a while since I’ve done any photography, so I’ve resolved to take any opportunities which present themselves.

I decided to find a solitary tree or two for some perspective and shadows. Thankfully, I quickly found a pair.

I like this tree better, but I kinda wish I’d framed a little wider to see if there was still a sundog above. Oh well…it’s still like -16F outside, so there’s no way I’m heading back out there. Even though photos like this are where I live “where the air hurts my face.”

Cold as ice

Cold as Rime Ice, that is…although I’m still going to call it frost. I actually predicted it, this time: I knew the weather conditions the night before, I’d decided that they were going to be perfect for this sort of development, and I was one hundred percent accurate the following morning.

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Frost ahead

It helps to know your way around Bismarck, paying attention to street names.

When we had a few days of spectacular frost (or Rime Ice, if you want to get technical) I was actually able to break away for a little bit and get my camera out!

I probably had my camera out of the bag more over the course of these four days than I did in all of 2020, so I’m pretty stoked to be able to present 109 edited photos of this phenomenon! And I’m going to continue to call it frost. The purists out there will have to concede that the difference between the two is in its formation, but the end result is the same: beauty.