Sunrise…

a silent benediction for the miracle of a new day.

Sunrise at ten below zero

This morning Nature wore a more colorful gown

This morning, after a week of temperature inversion in Montana’s western valleys, it began to leave and made a beautiful exit.

This morning’s sunrise

Sunrise over the confluence of the Clark Fork and the Flathead Rivers.

Sunrise

Vermilion night

In the last rays of evening light,  far below at the base of a distant peak, elk began to bugle… soothed by the soft siren sounds of cool winds tumbling through the hemlocks… spellbound for hours by stars so bright and dense that a needle-wand of light could not fit between them, sleep came slowly to a soft bed of fir needles, on a high ridge, in a place called “Vermilion”.

Then morning came, gentle and easy, through a saddle to the east,

and within the hour, wolves sang.