Reflections in the morning, of fresh snow or termination dust on the Wrangell Mountains, near Mount Blackburn, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks

Here’s another image, taken earlier, of the scene outside my tent door a few mornings ago. After spending the previous day in the rain, cold, sleet and snow, I went to bed hoping for an improvement in the weather.

All during dinner, I had watched the snowline on the peaks above camp come ever slowly down the mountains – lower and lower. Now, listening to the rain fall on my tent, I didn’t imagine much change happening.

Turning off my headlamp, it was lights out, and I had barely a flicker of hope for the rest of the hike – the continuing patter of rain falling on my tent a sound I was about done with. Eventually that sound faded and then ceased altogether – at first I thought it had simply turned to snow, but a glance outside confirmed that nope, the rain had actually stopped. Woo hoo!

Just after midnight, I noticed a glow, a faint light outside that grew stronger – the moon had risen, and was barely edging its gleem through the clouds. That’s a good sign, as earlier, the pass had been socked in. Improvement! The cloud cover had thinned. The rain was still stopped. Maybe, just maybe, this might work out OK.

As I got more excited about the prospect of a nice cold clear morning, it was hard to fall back to sleep. Unfortunately so, because I then overslept in the morning. When I finally woke, I instantly noticed the silence – no rain. I saw patterns of ice on the outside of my tent. If it was that cold, and not raining, I had a pretty good feeling that maybe it was clear outside.

Opening my tent door, I was completely blown away by the scene outside. Fresh snow, or “termination dust”, covered the peaks around us, and the blue skies seemed bluer than ever. The morning sunlight fairly dripped off the jagged peaks. What a scene. Awesome!

I crawled from my sleeping bag, threw on some long johns and a shirt, and my sandals, and raced down to the other tent, where the Ball family were camped. I hollered at them, “you guys have to see this!”

Their tent door opened, cautiously, and then simultaneously 3 voices breathed ‘WOW”!

I raced back to put some more clothes on, grab my camera and go about shooting photos. What an incredible morning. To be in a spot like this, with this kind of weather, is simply too awesome. And I mean “awesome” like “inspiring awe” – absolutely amazing.

What a great trip.

Cheers

Carl