Nose Hill Sunrise December 14, 2020

Good Morning!

Time to kick off another work week, that means getting out the door to see the sun rise up on Nose Hill.  This is an easy task for me.  It was a bitterly cold start which meant donning the extras such as long johns and neck/face gaiter in addition to the usual cold weather gear.  I hoped for a bit of pretty of any kind and I received that plus more.  

The sun came over the horizon while I was on the up slope and the ground became carpeted in pink.  

I reached the ridge to where I could see far off to the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.  

The sun had reached high enough that it created a pink frame highlighting those mountains.  

The only things that were pink could not have been more perfect!  

I did so many twirls watching the show in the sky.  

With the recent touch of snow and the frigid cold temperatures, every leaf, twig, plant and branch was covered in a layer of hoar frost.  When I became one with the ground to capture this angle, it appeared as if the clouds were bursting from the plant.   

at the entrance of a tree lined trail

I spent lots of time in the trees, purposely.  

Yet, when I did have wide open views, wow did I  have wide open views!

The furthest thing from my mind today was seeing a coyote.  I gave up hope on that back in the summer when there none to be found.  As I rounded a corner this morning, I had a somewhat close face to face encounter with this beauty.  The coyote just stood there and watched me as I captured my photos and then it trotted off into the bush.  This was the icing on top off the loads of sweet sugar sights I already saw.  

When I reached the far side of The Hill, it felt much colder and the bushes were frostier.  

More blue appeared, a wind picked up and I moved faster, faster back into the trees.   

I followed the treed trails as much as possible back to where there was one last descent and then a final ascent back to the trail leading to the parking lot.  This is my kind of way to kick off a work week!