Posts by Liz

Lookin’ for sunshine

Just before NinePipes, the Mission Mountains started making an appearance. We headed for Charlo and the National Bison Range area.

Charlo, MT was originally a trail crossing for freighters hauling grain and other goods from the rich Ronan Valley to the railroad at Dixon. The place was first called Big Flat, then Charlotte, and later Charlo, in honor of Chief Charlo of the Flatheads, one of the few chiefs who refused to sign Special Commissioner James A. Garfield’s order (August 27, 1872) removing all Indians of the region to the Jocko reservation. Joseph Dixon, a governor and US Senator, was instrumental in establishing the name Charlo.

The Bison Range is technically in Moise, MT but most know Charlo as the “gateway”.

This was my first visit to the range.

Not even buffalo, antelope or elk…

White tail deer, though.

And a river runs through it.

And there was sunshine.

Alpenglow on the road

We took the “Looking for Alpenglow” show on the road last evening. The start was visible on the mountain tops that we see through the trees but neighbors are in residence making the usual loop off limits.

Temperatures stayed very cold and skies very clear all day. As the sun set behind Blacktail Mountain, west of the valley, the glow started low.

The telltale pink hit some low clouds.

Some of the pink hit the mountain tops.

And the light lit the road home.

Morning moonlight

A forecast winter storm finally arrived. It snowed heavily most of yesterday and the skies were gray and overcast as they have been for days. But it cleared overnight and the temperature dropped to 9F. The waning half lit the woods through the trees…

…a spot of deep blue sky and the moonlit tops of the mountains sent Karl and I down the road in the Jeep to see what we could see.

Morning moonlight.

These old barns

These old barns…I’m forever wanting to catch this group just right…me and every other photographer that passes by them! They are just west of MT Highway 35 south of Woody’s and north of the Creston curve. There is a stand of 5 pine trees just to the east of the barns.

Today, just these old barns.

Mountain mystery

Karl’s and my Christmas Day tradition has been a decadent breakfast followed by a long snowshoe run. It continued this year.

Snow is scarce in the valley. We headed around Flathead Lake on the way to Blacktail Mountain Road and higher elevation.

Driving along the lake, a few mountain peaks of the Continental Divide were visible in sun holes in the cloud cover.

We drove up the road through the low inversion layer of foggy clouds and emerged above it all.

It was a world of sunshine, snow ghosts and mountain mystery.

Looking toward Christmas

The season of Advent: Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ.

I love this time of year – the waiting and expectation of Christmas, of snow and real Winter. There is excitement in all of it – remembering childhood Christmases so full of anticipation and then the growing of faith and the wondering of all that Christmas means to me now.

I like to savor every moment of this “time before” – the knowing of this celebration as our Heavenly Father wanting to enter our world and our lives.

On this quiet morning, I sat enjoying. The light from my little indoor tree softly lit small treasures from childhood, first years on my own and more recent finds that speak to me of the joy and wonder of this time of year. I sat…looking toward Christmas.