Description
Winter light in Yellowstone is almost always clean and blue cold. If there is any warm light, it is very brief at sunrise and sunset. There would normally never be a reason to stop for this forlorn-looking lodgepole pine killed by the North Fork Fire of 1988. One morning before sunrise I was watching steam from Calcite Springs drift through nearby trees. The sun came up over the ridge and lit up this little frosted tree along with the top of the snow drift. Then the sun brightened everything around it, and in less than one minute this magical, golden tree once again became a nondescript stick.
