Snow in the Bitterroots

Snow in the Bitterroots

Page Type Page Type: Album
Additional Information Image Type(s): Alpine Climbing, Scenery, Panorama

 

Preparing to climb North Trapper Peak

I admit that I prefer climbing on solid summer-warmed rock and, like many others, thoroughly enjoy the spectacular colors of spring and autumn. But snow-covered mountains have a sense of other-worldliness, a quiet mysteriousness that attracts me.


So I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that so many of the pictures I’ve posted on SummitPost to illustrate my Bitterroot Mountain pages feature snow. But it did. Even more interesting (at least to me) was that most of these "snow" pictures were taken during the last year.


Obviously something in me has changed. Had I taken so many pictures of the mountains during other times of year that I simply ran out of other subjects or was it something else?


I find it difficult to believe that I "simply ran out of subjects." When I look back at my flower pictures, for instance, I find there are literally hundreds of shots of just Red Indian Paintbrush. Surely that’s an indication that when I see a new (and different) Indian Paintbrush I consider it to be a new subject. The same is true for Columbine and Beargrass blooms and the hundreds of other "duplicate" pictures I’ve taken. No, I don’t believe I ran out of subjects.

Just Before Sunrise in the Bitterroots
In 2008 I began hiking and climbing months earlier than I had in previous years and there was surely some underlying reason for that. I’m pretty confident that because I’ve learned to ski (yes, even old guys like me can learn new things, even if it is only cross country skiing) and have spent many hours the last couple of winters doing so, I am more comfortable in snowy conditions than in years past. I’m convinced that because the mountains hold an attraction which I cannot deny, and because I am more comfortable with snow, I felt able to enter the mountains at an earlier date. And since there was more snow during those early-year months, its many forms were included in my shots. Yep, pretty simple once I stopped to think about it.

I’m sorry if this album, which began simply as a place to collect my SummitPost "snow" pictures, turned into a case of public introspection, but there it is. Gathering these shots provided me with a few surprises along the way. To be sure some regarded the subjects in the pictures, but more than a few had to do with my thoughts and feeling.

Few of the attached pictures features snow as the main subject but snow contributes to the "mood" of each shot in some way, no matter how small.

Enjoy!

Mike Hoyt – thephotohiker

The Bitterroots - A Panorama Paradise

A small portion of The Bitterroots on a cold January day

Downing Mountain (left) and its west ridge connecting it to Canyon Peak

The seldom visited Point 8839

The east ridge of Boulder Peak


The Shard and its long and high east ridge

The Printz Ridge Summits (left to right) Mill Point, Mill Point West, and Hauf Peak


Hidden Lake Peak (middle-left) and Glen Lake Peak (middle-right)


Ward Mountain peeking through the clouds

The impressive North Trapper Peak

An elk harem


Summits of the Camas Cirque (left to right) Ward Mountain, Kidney Lake Peak, East Camas Peak, and West Camas Peak



A Pre-Christmas sunset over Ward Mountain




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