Snow is Awesome

That's me, just south of Fox Hunter's Paradise

 

With a little work, snow can be(and always is) a wonderful thing.  Sure, we have to sometimes live without electricity, water, internet, or other amenities.  We have to shovel our driveways or get stuck, we have to brush off our satellite dishes to restore entertainment, we sometimes have to light a candle to create enough light to play scrabble.  I mean, it can be a very traumatic experience.

 

I for one, absolutely love snow.  The more the better.  I love the change in the landscape, the ice natural sculptures of ice, and the crunch under my feet.  I also love how snow can bring on an absolute quiet. 

 

I started my day getting dressed at 4a.m.  Since my area recieved over 6" of snow the previous evening, I new that I was gonna need a good head start to make it to Fox Hunter's Paradise by sunrise. 

 

The county road crew came and scraped our road(with an actual constuction scraper), creating a huge pile of snow at the bottom of my driveway.  I thought I could get a little speed and blast through the snow in reverse, but of course I got stuck.  I don't own a shovel, so I found myself trying to dig my car out with a utility rake.  I had been digging for about ten minutes when my neighbor, a local mail carrier who was on his way to work, came up behind me and offered a push.  This was critical in getting me to the parkway on time(and keeping my car from blocking half of the road).

 

I then drove to the Highway 18/Blue Ridge Parkway Junction and parked my car in a safe spot on the side of the road.  It's just shy of 2 miles to Fox Hunter's Paradise, and since a few 4x4's had driven the parkway the night before, I was able to walk in thier tracks:)  I made it to the overlook at the beginning of blue hour, with stars still showing. 

 

While I waited for the sun to rise, I snapped a few predawn shots before heading down the parkway just a little ways to capture the sun breaking the horizon.  The air was coooooooooooold before sunrise.  I tried to clean my graduated filter by breathing on it and wiping it off(I know, not the best choice) and all I got was bits of ice on my filter as it froze immediately.

 

After sunrise walking back to the car, I decided to stop into gully creek, but the rhododendrons that were pushed down by all the snow made navigating the creek very difficult, so I didn't hang around long...

 

Enjoy the image below, and click the link to view the full gallery from Friday's fun.

 

 

Click Here for the Full Gallery



 

 

 

The Sun breaks the horizon near Pilot Mountain