Imbolc                                                                                Maiden Moon

Black Mountain is white. I can see it out of two windows here and its looming shape, it’s about 1500 feet higher than our altitude here on Shadow Mountain, blends in with the sky. The lodgepole pines and the few aspen that cover it are snow covered. The mountains, which seem-and are-the definition of stability and bulk still surprise me by how frequently they change appearance. In the fog Black Mountain disappears. After a heavy snow it changes color, becomes different from its green and rocky self. At night, if Bishop Berkeley was right, it goes away, only to return in the morning light.

(Black Mountain is above the trees on the left)

In the fall aspen light up its elevations, gold against green. The green becomes more vivid.

The Front Range is a physical barrier to a traveler from the east as they head west along the 40th parallel. It marks the end of the Great Plains and does so in a sudden upsweep of rock. Those of us raised in the humid east find ourselves in a new, startlingly new, land. A big part of the fun of being here.