Brought to you by 6240.

It may just be visual, but for anyone here along the Wasatch Front, here’s a little relief from the smog trapped in the valleys.

The summit between East and Emigration Canyons sits at about 6240 feet above sea level.  That’s about 1800 feet above where my house sits.  Friday I headed up there, just to get some fresh air and see the sky.  It was warm (compared to down in the city), fresh and wonderful.  Today or tomorrow, I may head out westward to find some sky.  Then I should be able to survive until Wednesday, when they say something’s coming through that will scour out the valley.

I took that picture yesterday, out by the airport.  I was fascinated that they would paint the belly of an airplane that color.

This was also fascinating, how the snow was holding together despite hanging down off the railing of my upper deck.  I took these pictures yesterday, and it’s still dangling today, although a little lower.  I’ll let you know when it collapses.

Nikkor 55-300mm zoom lens.

I went out and bought a new lens today.   I’ve been wanting a good telephoto lens, my old one must be run manually and when taking pictures of the assemblies and sports events at school, it’s hard to focus, adjust the shutter speed and f/stop without missing the action.

And of course, on the way home I stopped off at the park to see what it could do.  Here are some of the pictures I got today.  These pictures are downsized, but they are the full, un-cropped pictures.  They are mostly pictures of the birds at the park, with one requisite mountain picture and one I messed with a bit.  First the bird pictures, and as always, click on the picture to see a bigger version.

My, what a unique necklace you have there.

This a cropped version of that last picture.

The main picture here is with the lens fully zoomed out.  The inset is the car’s license plate from another shot with the lens fully zoomed in, and then cropped and enlarged.

And the mountains.

Green Mountains

I live in a desert.  It’s not supposed to rain every week.  The mountains should be completely brown by the beginning of August.

But this year, we’ve had a couple of good downpours almost every week, all summer.  Which has wreaked havoc on a lot of people’s basements, but also has kept the mountains quite green.

The first picture is of the mountains on the north side of the valley, the ones facing directly south.  There is still more green than usual, but you can get an idea of how all the mountains are supposed to look this time of year.

This is looking directly east from Sugarhouse Park.  These usually look a lot more like the ones in the above picture.

Here I’m looking sort of south-eastish from the park.

This one is looking very south-east.  The big granite peak on the right hand side is Mt. Olympus, where we get our famous bottled Mt. Olympus Spring Water.  The housing development you can see right above the tree line is known as Olympus Cove, or just “The Cove”.

So, to some people in more humid areas these may not seem all that green.  But, despite living in Boston until I was 14, these seem quite green to me.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

… Snowed most of the day today, and it’s supposed to continue into tomorrow.  This is a good thing, not only for skiers, but for anyone who breathes the air in the valley.  The city is so beautiful right after a snow, when  the mountains are covered in white, and the air is crystal clear.