The Road To You #15123

The Story

Along a two-lane mountain road during a Pennsylvania winter, snow covered branches fill the bordering woods. Those fine white fingers were everywhere, undisturbed in the morning light. The wind hadn’t come up to knock off the snow covering the branches, nor had the sun come up high enough to melt it away.

Snow like this in the woods can be very delicate. It’s a beautiful yet fragile world Mother Nature creates when she works with snow on the trees, especially on the fine thin branches. It doesn’t take much to ruin this magic…the aforementioned wind can blow or the temperature could rise quickly. Usually, there’s only a short time to work with what nature has given in these scenes.

As always, there’s an element of luck in photography. I enjoy that. But you have to sometimes make your own luck to increase the chances of something good happening. In this case, I knew the snow was coming and also knew to get out early and go high…in elevation, that is. As luck was working in my favor, the snow that day also happened to be the right kind. Not too heavy, not too light. The kind that would cling and pile easily, and stick around a little while if the wind was down, which it was.

It was a quiet and still morning as I walked along the mountain road with the camera and tripod. Not a sound came from the woods and all the animals weren’t out. Occasionally, a car would come through that could be heard coming from a long way off. My enjoyable time here was spent photographing these views with the road curving through. Or I would photograph straight into the woods looking for the best composition of vertical thick tree trunks mixed with the horizontal branches covered in snow.

There is much beauty across the winter landscape no matter where one can travel. But if there ever was a classic scenic winter landscape, branches covered in snow such as these are surely part of it.

More snow covered branches can be seen in a shot called Icewater Mansions #07721. That’s an old one from the film days. And for another shot of snowy winter woods with some good-looking horses in it, go to Running Partners #14383.

Location: the mountains above Altoona, Blair County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks