This morning I woke and the first thing I saw was that it wasn’t raining. I’ve been in Kellogg the last few days. I knew I wanted to crawl out of bed, make a cup of coffee and head to Elsie Lake outside of town. The last few days have been nothing but a downpour here in the Silver Valley.

After packing up my truck with some camera gear I headed toward Elsie. The drive up Burke road is always fun. After passing the mines and into the forest you follow Big Creek up the valley. It is one of my favorite fall drives. As you ascend you will start to see the changing tamarack trees in the distance. In the sea of green they shine in the sunlight. Even when there is a lack thereof. Finally after driving almost the whole way to the lake I rounded a bend on the forest road and there it was… Snow. I was so excited. It was the first snow I have been in this season. It immediately had me excited for the ski season. After a little bit more driving I made it over the ridge and down into the lake below. I pulled into the parking area and got my drone out before the rain started back up again. I took a few photos on the drone and a couple videos. The video is for a project that I am starting to work on with my friend Nathan. More to come on that soon. We need some snow first. That’s a little hint to what it is, but that’s all I will say for now.

After burning through one of the batteries for my drone I decided it was time to get my camera out and photograph a little more. I shot a few frames to make a large panorama of Elsie Lake. The panoramic photo I made is made up of 26 photos of the lake. The photo was processed through CaptureOnePro and then stitched together in Photoshop. I’m not sure if this is final photo or not yet. I see things that I want to change on it, as any photographer does after they’ve worked on a photograph. I will take a short break from it, and then come back to it to make those changes.