Tag Archive for 'montana mountains'

Lift up your eyes on high

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. Isaiah 40:26

Photo taken 2/4/2010: more from the evening walk. This photo is very similar to the one posted previously, but the verse from Isaiah was part of my morning reflection and it led me to look at the group of photos from that evening.

In this morning’s entry, Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost for His Highest” writes:

“If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.”

My next reading from Andrew Murray’s “Mighty is His Hand” had a similar theme of God in everything:

Accept with gratitude everything that God allows to come into your life. I mean all things – whether from the world without, or attacks from within; whether from friend or enemy; in nature or in grace.

Hmmm

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. Isaiah 40:26

Amen!

From the evening walk

Karl and I walked the mountain loop in the crunchy slush just before sunset. It had been mostly gray and overcast all day, but cleared late afternoon. Temperatures in the 30’s felt mild in the late sunshine and we dawdled on our way.

Not quite alpenglow but the setting sun lit the mountain tops showing them off against the dark clouds.

Photo taken 2/4/2010.

Fair weather photography…

With everyone feeling in tip-top shape and the weather calling for partly sunny, we loaded Karl, snowshoes and provisions in the Explorer and set out for parts East. The plan was to head over Marias pass, skirting the south end of Glacier National Park and then north towards the Canadian border to see what we could see.

However, the weather was not as advertised. It was snowing – heavily at times. The road south of West Glacier, MT was starting to get slick. The skies were heavy and gray. We turned in to the park to see about winter rates for entry with the idea that we would save the gas and go home but be armed with knowlege about the winter park fees….summer one time entry rates are $25 per car!

Well, now…the park has “senior” rates of $10 for a lifetime pass and “senior” is 62…and Steve is 63, so “Yippie – cai – oh – cai – ay”! – we got a pass and having it in hand we decided to drive the 8 miles of Going-to-the-sun Road that is open in the winter and at least let Karl out for a bit.

First stop, Apgar, where it was snowing heavily.

We continued on…

Ha – a bit of blue sky! This is close to the classic composition of photos of Lake McDonald excepting that most choose to take this shot on a blue sky, sparkling water, bright summer day…

That little bit of blue sky was the last blue we saw…

…until we hit the valley floor. And in the photo above – around the bend…there lies the road home.

It was a beautiful day.

Lookin’ for sunshine

The valley warmed up, the cloud layer dropped and it looked to be a dreary, socked in day. We went looking for sunshine.

We’ve noticed that often there are patches of sunlight to the south so the initial thought was to go around the lake thinking we might get some sun in Polson on the south shore. Polson was still under the clouds, but there were spots of light and blue further south singing their siren song.

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.

First visit for Karl, also!

Steve told us that in the summer, it is bumper to bumper on the roads that wind through the open range.

Today, though, we had the range nearly to ourselves.

Not even buffalo, antelope or elk…

White tail deer, though – we saw a LOT of deer!

And a river runs through it.

And there was sunshine.

Chasing the ‘glo

As we hit the beginning of the loop walk, the setting sun was lighting just a few peaks to the northeast.

We missed the bright light but a bit of after glow hit another spot.

Karl found the spot he likes – his spot to survey the territory, smell the air and take in the evening.

Front Light

Photo taken 10/24/2009

What Karl and I saw

Karl and I took a run to town for supplies – solo – the man is hunting in Eastern MT…actually – chaperoning a youth group hunt.

On the way for supplies, I stopped at the dump and the road out of the dump provided a bit of Fall flavor.

I’ve shot from here before.

From the same spot, but to the West – a snow squall moves south with a bit of sun showing the golden larch in front of the squall.

That’s what Karl and I saw.

Vintage classics

The men, the tractor, the land, the mountains – vintage classics.