Rimed Whitebark Pine dramatizing how the rime counterintuitively grows into the wind, in that perfect niche where the forces align, where the path of least resistance is actually uphill. That’s how it is in the mountains sometimes, unexpected things occur up near the thresholds, at the edge.
Crazy refraction from ice crystals in the high clouds, which the camera makes apparent, so much wonder takes place all around us just beyond the bounds of our normal perceptions.
Can see how the surface hoar scattered hissing with each turn, plates sliding slick as ice on ice, desiccated but with some mass to it, something to push against, delectable skiing.
Fresh tracks, looks like porcupine from the quill drag marks, headed my way.
Yup, really fresh. I whistled to him as I approached but he ignored me and kept plodding. I’d rather not bother him, they work hard for a living. But he’s headed for the same rocky pinched little pass that I am. I hope he can tell I’m harmless by my vibe, and my song.
He was headed the direction I was going, so I swung wide to pass him, but he veered off course to avoid me, still keeping his back to me, presumably as a defensive maneuver. I apologized for intruding.
Porcupines (Erithizon dorsatum) are relatively primitive, ancient creatures, well honed to their task by evolution, tried and true. Some winters we have seen their sign confined to a single grove way up on a mountainside, all winter long, but they do have some mobility in the deep snow.
Western White Pines stately tapering boles
Killion’s snags, so called in reference to a gorgeous wood block etching of this spot by Tom Killion, one of the few he did in the Tahoe area, otherwise focusing his mountain images more on the High Sierra, south of here.