We had a welcome visitor last night, early this morning.

The Aurora season has been kind of disappointing so far this winter here in Bear Valley.  It's been almost a month since we've seen her,  so anytime she shows up it's a nice gift.   After a quick tease early, she finally got going around midnight.  The strongest show was around 1:30 am this morning.   There was a lot of moisture (ice fog) in the air that you could barely see with the naked eye, but it definitely threw off the focus on some of the longer exposures.   Finally gave up around 3 am.

Back-country skijoring in Portage Valley.

We drove down to Portage Valley early this afternoon for some back-country skijoring with Xena.  Turned out that the wind was howling up on the ridges of the Chugach Mountains and out on Portage Lake, so we stayed in the woods around Moose Flats.  We had a surprise visitor on the Portage River as we were pulling in, a coyote!   A gorgeous afternoon with some really dramatic light.  Fun day.