Spring Snow
I’m not proud to say that I don’t know the names of these bushes and trees…they’re planted around the building at my work-place…the ones with the yellow flowers look like holly leaves…and the blossoms look like they’re from some type of apple or cherry tree, but the trees have had no fruit in the time that I’ve known them…so I don’t know what they are…maybe someone else does? At any rate…one day it was in the mid-70’s, and the next day it was in the 40’s and snowed…something like that. And this is what it looked like –
Lines and Shadows
One of the remarkable things about being the first person out on the trail after a snow-fall is that the first visage with the unblemished snow will not exist again until it snows significantly enough to cover all the tracks…and that might be months or a year away. So it was with a bit of reluctance, then, that I continued along the trail, being the one to mark-up the perfect snow-fall…the one to taint the treasure that only existed for a few hours. Here’s some mind-boggling beauty for you…
The photos were all taken along the Pipeline Trail in Mill Creek Canyon, Salt Lake City, USA.
Sand or Snow?
On first glance, it looked like dried-out salt grass along the beach sticking up through beautiful white sand…
These images were taken along the Pipeline Trail between Burch Hollow and Elbow Fork in Mill Creek Canyon, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Blackbirds in Snow
It snowed again last night, giving us the second “significant” snow of the winter. There might be an inch of the white stuff on the ground, if that, but it is enough to cover the land and bring the white beauty of the season that I love.
As I was standing on the back porch attempting to get some good close-up shots of a couple of Robins in the old Russian Olive tree, a flock of some type of black birds stopped-in for a visit…
Less than a minute after they settled, the birds spied another mass of their companions approaching, and with a great rustling of wings and feathers, they were gone and away….
Miniature Crystals
I found these little treasures while walking the trail in Little Cottonwood Canyon and couldn’t resist bringing them home with me!
to be alive
I think it’s incredible that plants can live and thrive on the side of a rock. It’s more believable, I suppose that they can live on the side of a tree, but I suppose when I consider it all together, there are minerals and salts and whatever else might be needed in the both of them…and with the abundant moisture on the often wet rock and trees, I guess everything is there.
So beautiful it almost hurts….
Mill Creek Canyon is one of the three main natural canyons in the Wasatch Mountains that provide the eastern border of Salt Lake City, Utah.
On the First of November of each year, the parks personnel close the road at the five-mile mark in the canyon and do not plow it beyond that point. The main road then becomes a favored location for cross-country skiers to practice their skills in climbing upward for six miles or more and then racing down the smooth pathway back toward the gate.
There are also numerous trails that lead up and into and along-side the various other mini-canyons and gulches that fill the mountain area to the sides of the canyon proper.
On this particular Sunday morning and afternoon, I took the Pipeline trail for about two miles until it reached Elbow Fork, and then took the trail that leads to Mount Aire and/or Lamb’s Canyon.
I chose to go to Lamb’s Canyon pass, which was close to another two miles up and into the mountains.
Lucky for me, I had my gaiters on, because the snow quickly became six to twelve inches deep, depending on where the trail lay under trees or in clearings where there was nothing to prevent more snow from accumulating.
After I came to what I thought might have been Lamb’s Canyon pass or the ridge that was my destination (where the previous hikers and snow-shoe-ers had turned around), I continued down and along what I perceived to still be the trail that actually led to Lamb’s Canyon. I followed some large deer or elk or moose tracks for another few hundred yards…until the snow was deep enough that my knees were getting cold from the snow above my gaiters….and decided that it was time to turn around.
At any rate, it was a beautiful hike into the snow-covered forests of Mill Creek Canyon.
The Spirit of Winter
The Spirit of Winter moved across the face of the waters and caused tiny miracles to happen wherever she placed her fingers…sometimes flat and smooth with crystals forming in abstract covers over tiny pools where the water still ran smooth and deep, other times in long and fragile wands hanging from rocks or branches or trees, and still other times growing upright and outward, curling from the spray of moving waters beneath, forming into little orbs of icy glass, jewels all, delicate, temporal…and vanishing with the passing of time and warm currents and breezes.
Spring and the Snowmelt
The last time I was on this particular trail, the Little Cottonwood, it was packed with more than a foot of snow…and when I occasionally stepped off the trail proper (the snow trail that had been packed-down by the hikers who had gone before me), I often sank past my knee into the cold white stuff. While I enjoy the snow and the cold of winter, it was refreshing to behold the new green of the waking forest. On today’s hike, I wandered up and down trails that I had never seen and was lured deeper into the forest by the sounds of rushing water.  I was rewarded for my exploration by finding streams coming down the mountains in the most random and unexpected places. I later returned to the main trail and found myself walking in the rain along the rushing river of snowmelt that comes from the many dozens of feet of snow that has fallen during this past winter and early spring. Enjoy….
Scott's Place...Images and Words 