New Year’s Moon

Winter White Tail & Winter moon

Islands in a sea of clouds ~ Another visit to Corona Divide

Today a friend and I visited the Corona Divide one last time before the weather conditions that create these scenes subsides and found that today there were islands in the sea of clouds.

Ice crystals formed in the track of a wolf.

A visit to Corona Divide

High pressure has been in place over western Montana for what has seemed like an eternity, trapping low stratus clouds and freezing fog over the Clark Fork River. Viewed from the valley, the clouds dim the light and obscure the mountain tops (and sometimes the mountains themselves) that surround it. Sometimes however, that can bring an opportunity for seeing some very pretty scenery if you can get above the clouds. On a hunch today I took a forest road for fifteen miles to the Corona Divide about three thousand feet above the valley and it turned out to be just above the low dense clouds. The following are some of the ninety photos I brought back from the Divide today.