This morn­ing I went out ear­ly to White­mud ravine. It has been a long time since I’ve been there for sun­rise, and I’d for­got­ten how long it takes after the “offi­cial” sun­rise for the light to reach the bot­tom of the ravine. In the mean­time, I enjoyed the chilly late-autumn air and the lit­tle bit of frost on the bare wil­lows and aspen saplings (and I froze my fin­ger­tips for the first time of the sea­son). After walk­ing most of the morn­ing with­out find­ing much to pho­to­graph, I found the sun final­ly reach­ing down onto this frost-cov­ered wil­low and alder thick­et. I had to bal­ance on a fall­en stem to get the right per­spec­tive for this shot (shoot­ing down­wards, so the bright sky wouldn’t blow out the top of the pho­to).