Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Greeley Ponds

Off to the White Mountains....and WHITE they are. Stunning backdrop on the road trip up. The ride up was an adventure on it's own. We stopped to photograph a hawk on a wire on the side of the road and low and behold, it was a Barred owl! HOW EXCITING!
It's markings both front and back were so pretty. I kept a safe distance as it may have looked at a little dog like me as lunch!
We headed up the trail into the glacial ponds called Upper and Lower Greeley. A side trail leads up to Mt. Osceola. We've hiked that before too. This trail ran up the gulch between the larger mountains. We were enchanted by more of natures spectacles. A birch tree formed into an elbow resting on a large rock......
....and snow crystals stuck to pebbles in the brook.
We could hear the ice cracking and popping as the trail led down to the first pond.
The moon rose over the pond as we approached. Sun on one side moon on the other, nothing but bright blue sky in between.



Very little snow lie on the ice so we could look down and see really cool designs in the ice. Like this "Ice Daisy"....just for my Mom..."Miss Daisy"


Headed home later we passed several frozen waterfalls...........

......and then we were treated to an awesome sunset.