Yesterday morning dawned clear and cold. I could see the Olympics from the deck, for the first time in a while. The last time, maybe a week or ten days ago, they were dark in color, late summer alpine rock. On this day, a fresh coat of white covered all the peaks that I could see, with fingers of snow reaching down the chutes and ravines, grasping and holding to the lower slopes. Snow has been falling in the higher elevations for the better part of a week now, and the ground is sleeping.
The brilliant blue skies lasted until about noon. Then the sky went gray again, but I could still see the mountains until the light faded.