Tag Archive for 'mountains'

Lift up your eyes on high

Published on February 10, 2010 in Montana and Photos. 6 Comments Tags: , .

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

Published on February 5, 2010 in Montana. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

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…

Published on January 25, 2010 in Montana, Pets and Photos. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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

Published on January 11, 2010 in Montana, Pets and Photos. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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.

A Room with a View

Published on January 3, 2010 in Front Porch Musings and wedding. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

We spent a honeymoon weekend at Mountain Lake Lodge on Woods Bay of Flathead Lake, just south of Bigfork…an entire 10 miles from home.

Mountain Lake Lodge has a main building with lobby, lakeside restaurant and downstairs a lakeside pub. There are 6 buildings scattered in a semi-circle around pool and hot tub. The small buildings, none more than 2 1/2 stories high and their arrangement allows for lake views from every room. All of the rooms are spacious, have fireplaces and ours also had an indoor hot tub. I have put visitors here including blog reader and dear friend, Sandy and her husband Jerry, this past summer.

It is a restful, pretty place in a beautiful spot. It was a wonderful place for us to start our life together.

Although skies were gray, our spirits were not!

We spent Saturday exploring and taking photos…

from the north end of the lake…

…to a spot that looks over the valley: Lone Pine State Park.

Vistas of valley and mountains and a room with a view.

An evening out

Published on January 2, 2010 in Front Porch Musings, Misc and Pets. 8 Comments Tags: , , .

December 23, newlyweds of 5 days, Steve and Ann Douglas stepped out for the evening…

The night was fine, a hint of alpenglow was spreading across the mountain tops…

Their dog Karl accompanied them…

Although the alpenglow was brief and subtle, a good time was had by all.

An evening out.

*Some favorite wedding photos are up – click on the Wedding Photos tab at the top of the blog to view.

Mountain mystery

Published on December 27, 2009 in Nature. 6 Comments Tags: , , .

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

Snow is scarce in the valley. We headed around Flathead Lake on the way to Blacktail Mountain Road an 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 (see Steve’s Flickr) and mountain mystery.

Chasing the ‘glo

Published on November 21, 2009 in Montana and Photos. 6 Comments Tags: , .

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.