Kevin Palmer

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  • While driving home from the Tetons on New Years Eve, I encountered freezing fog that slowed me down near Riverton. The thin layer of fog lowered visibility and caused some slick spots on the roads. But once the fog cleared, the frosty trees contrasted with the deep blue sky to create a winter wonderland. When water droplets from fog or low-hanging clouds freeze directly to the outer surface of an object it's known as rime ice.
    Riverton Rime
  • Most of the ice at Piney Creek was covered by a layer of snow. But this portion of the creek was different, and the ice had a beautiful turquoise color. For some reason the water was flowing on top of the ice here, with slush in some areas. If I stood on the wet ice for very long my boots would freeze in place.
    Turquoise Ice
  • For the Geminid meteor shower I snowshoed to the top of the continental divide in Western Montana. From the Granite Butte lookout tower, the views were stunning in every direction. The weather changed by the second alternating between snow showers, gale force winds, freezing fog with zero visibility, clear skies, and brief moments of calm. The tough whitebark pine trees which grow up here are all permanently bent. They point eastward from the prevailing westerly winds which almost never stop. The low temperatures, strong winds, and fog combined to create hard rime ice, which covered every surface (including me and my camera) with a coating up to 2 inches thick. To say that shooting conditions were challenging would be an understatement. My tripod had to be carefully propped up to avoid it blowing over. And with all my batteries dying too soon, I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to. This was one of the brighter meteors which shone through the fog. The lights on the right are from the city of Helena.
    Through the Freezing Fog
  • The views at sunrise were stunning from the Granite Butte fire lookout on Montana's continental divide. All the whitebark pine trees were coated with thick rime ice and fog drifted around the valleys.
    Rime Before Dawn
  • The views at sunrise were stunning from the Granite Butte fire lookout on Montana's continental divide. This is looking west where an atmospheric inversion trapped fog in the valleys.
    West of the Divide
  • I went to Lake DeSmet at 3AM on a 5°F night with the hope of seeing the aurora. I didn't see it, but I saw this amazing scene instead. Fog was moving off of the lake when I arrived. It left behind a thick frost known as rime ice. The coating was about an inch thick over every single plant and tree branch, but only in this small area. With bright moonlight illuminating everything, it felt like I had stepped into another world.
    Moonlit Rime
  • Orion shines above snow and rime covered pine trees near the summit of Granite Butte.
    Granite Butte Snowdrift
  • It was only October, but it looked like winter at Sibley Lake in the Bighorn Mountains.
    October Midwinter
  • Steam rises from the Illinois River as a new day dawns at Starved Rock State Park. The steam is formed due to the near 40 degree difference between the air temperature and the water. The subzero air caused the steam to turn to frost on the small grassy island.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/24/13
    Icy Steam
  • On the last day of November I snowshoed a few miles up Red Grade Road as a storm cleared out, leaving behind a foot of fresh snow. This steep road is only accessible by foot or by snowmobile this time of year. In 2007 nearly 5,000 acres of Little Goose Canyon burned in a wildfire. 12 years later it's still easy to see exactly where the fire stopped. One of the best things about being out right after a fresh snowfall is the silence. A layer of light, fluffy snow on the ground acts as a sound absorber and dampens sound waves. But after snow melts and refreezes the opposite is true. Sound waves travel farther and are clearer when they bounce off of old and hard snow.
    Last Sunset of November
  • The morning dawned bright and clear on top of Granite Butte. The sun doesn't make it above the horizon until after 8AM this time of year. When I arrived on the summit the evening before, visibility was limited to 50 feet. But now the freezing fog had settled into the valleys, trapped below an inversion layer. Underneath that fog is Montana's capital city of Helena. Between shooting meteors all night and keeping the wood burning stove going, I didn't get much sleep. But a sunrise like this makes it easy to wake up. The weather can be extremely harsh up here. It was at a pass 16 miles away where the coldest temperature in the US (outside of Alaska) was once measured at -70°F. While it wasn't quite that cold on this morning, I was still glad to have a fire lookout tower to stay in and escape from the nearly incessant wind.
    8:09 Sunrise
  • The weather was a lot clearer this morning compared to the evening before. But freezing fog still occasionally drifted past Granite Butte, obscuring the valleys below.
    Morning Freezing Fog
  • I made Oxbow Bend my last stop before leaving Grand Teton National Park. I thought I wouldn't need my snowshoes since I was just going to take a few quick pictures. But the snow was up to my waist, making it very difficult to get to the edge of the Snake River. A heavy frost was coating everything along the river.
    Waist Deep Snow
  • On the last day of November I snowshoed a few miles up Red Grade Road as a storm cleared out, leaving behind a foot of fresh snow. This steep road is only accessible by foot or by snowmobile this time of year. In 2007 nearly 5,000 acres of Little Goose Canyon burned in a wildfire. 12 years later it's still easy to see exactly where the fire stopped. One of the best things about being out right after a fresh snowfall is the silence. A layer of light, fluffy snow on the ground acts as a sound absorber and dampens sound waves. But after snow melts and refreezes the opposite is true. Sound waves travel farther and are clearer when they bounce off of old and hard snow.
    Buried In White
  • The Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout Tower is just 25 miles west of Denver and has a great view of the city lights coming on. The fog and clouds quickly cleared out as it got darker.
    Denver At Twilight
  • Once I reached Granite Butte on top of the continental divide, the wind became stronger. The tough whitebark pine trees which grow up here are all pointed eastward, away from the prevailing westerly winds. Every single surface (including myself) was coated with rime ice.
    Frosted Forest
  • For the Geminid meteor shower I snowshoed to the top of the continental divide in Western Montana. From the Granite Butte lookout tower, the views were stunning in every direction. The weather changed by the second alternating between snow showers, gale force winds, freezing fog with zero visibility, clear skies, and brief moments of calm. The tough whitebark pine trees which grow up here are all permanently bent. They point eastward from the prevailing westerly winds which almost never stop. The low temperatures, strong winds, and fog combined to create hard rime ice, which covered every surface (including me and my camera) with a coating up to 2 inches thick. To say that shooting conditions were challenging would be an understatement. My tripod had to be carefully propped up to avoid it blowing over. And with all my batteries dying too soon, I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to. But this was one of the brighter meteors captured, flying in between Orion and Sirius.
    Catching a Gem
  • The views at sunrise were stunning from the Granite Butte fire lookout on Montana's continental divide. All the whitebark pine trees were coated with thick rime ice and fog drifted around the valleys. I had to use my widest lens to capture all the color.
    Morning on the Divide
  • The weather was beautiful while I snowshoed back from Granite Butte after spending the night there. Freezing fog had coated all the trees with thick frost and rime ice, which contrasted with the deep blue skies. This portion of the forest was burnt in a wildfire.
    Frosted Treetops
  • This wasn't the sunrise I was hoping for. But I had to stop at this overlook for The Thunderer mountain and just appreciate the perfect silence. The snowflakes in the air seemed to absorb all sound and the thick forest blocked out the winds that were present further up Lamar Valley.
    Silent Dawn
  • The trees at the top of this peak in the Big Hole Mountains of Idaho were permanently pointed eastward, against the prevailing winds.
    Winter Stillness
  • Just before sunrise at Lake DeSmet, fog was lifting off of the water. With the temperature at 5°F, the fog left behind thick rime ice along the shore.
    Frosted Shoreline
  • The views at sunrise were stunning from the Granite Butte fire lookout on Montana's continental divide. Red Mountain is the tallest peak on the left.
    Red Mountain Morning
  • On a subzero morning at Starved Rock State Park, very intricate and delicate frost formed on this icy creek. I felt like I was destroying a work of art every time I took a step. The golden sunlit canyon walls are reflected in one of the only unfrozen portions of La Salle Creek.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/24/13
    Cold as Gold
  • I went to Lake DeSmet at 3AM on a 5°F night with the hope of seeing the aurora. I didn't see it, but I saw this amazing scene instead. Fog was moving off of the lake when I arrived. It left behind a thick frost known as rime ice. The coating was about an inch thick over every single plant and tree branch, but only in this small area. With bright moonlight illuminating everything, it felt like I had stepped into another world.
    By The Light of the Moon
  • Frosty Sunlight
  • An owl hooting, geese honking, coyotes howling, and a river gurgling - these were the sounds that filled the air on this frosty night. At this dot on the map called Moorhead in southeast Montana, there’s nothing really here. But that’s the point. It’s in a black zone on a light pollution map, which means the night sky doesn’t get any darker than this. The core of the Milky Way galaxy, after going behind the sun for the winter, has now returned to the pre-dawn skies. Also joining the Milky Way is a trio of planets: Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. I wasn’t sure if they would make it over the bluff before astronomical twilight began. But they did, casting long shimmering reflections on the Powder River. When two or more planets pass close to each other in Earth’s sky, it’s called a planetary conjunction. Since the planets more or less orbit the sun in the same plane, conjunctions are not all that rare. But they’re always beautiful to see.
    Milky Way and 3 Planets
  • I've been wanting to get an image like this for a long time. But it's been several years since we've had a comet this bright. This comet named 46P/Wirtanen was discovered in 1948 and will make it's closest approach to Earth next week. I had my doubts that this picture would happen. The comet would only be positioned above this snowy mountain for 3 nights at most. Even rarer than a clear night in December, I needed a night with no wind. But at 2AM on December 7th, everything came together. The temperature hovered around 0°F; it was a frosty nostril kind of night. When I first arrived in the Bighorn Mountains the comet was just visible to the naked eye, but the best view was through binoculars. In my pictures, it's about 2-3X the angular size of the moon. To make this image I captured a series of 6 shots using a star tracking mount. I had to be careful to align everything as accurately as possible while processing.
    Comet and Mountain
  • Mount Moran rises above the frosty Snake River Valley as seen from near Cunningham Cabin.
    Moran From Cunningham
  • The Tetons glow in the light of sunrise on a frosty morning while the Snake River flows quietly below. It is this exact view that I used to create my logo/watermark. One of the reasons the Tetons are so majestic is because this range has no foothills. The mountains rise abruptly 7,000 feet above the valley floor in only about 3 miles. On long winter nights cold air tends to slide down the steep slopes and becomes trapped under an inversion layer in the Jackson Hole Valley. With the Tetons to the west, Absarokas to the north, and the Gros Ventre mountains to the east, the air has nowhere to go. This leads to some seriously cold temperatures. In the last month alone it has reached -20°F or colder on 7 mornings. In 1933 the temperature here dropped to a bone-chilling -66°F, making it among the coldest temperatures ever measured in the US outside of Alaska.
    Winter Teton Sunrise
  • The Tetons glow in the light of sunrise on a frosty morning while the Snake River flows quietly below. It is this exact view that I used to create my logo/watermark that I put in the corner of every picture I upload. One of the reasons the Tetons are so majestic is because this range has no foothills. The mountains rise abruptly 7,000 feet above the valley floor in only about 3 miles. On long winter nights cold air tends to slide down the steep slopes and becomes trapped under an inversion layer in the Jackson Hole Valley. With the Tetons to the west, Absarokas to the north, and the Gros Ventre mountains to the east, the air has nowhere to go. This leads to some seriously cold temperatures. In the last month alone it has reached -20°F or colder on 7 mornings. In 1933 the temperature here dropped to a bone-chilling -66°F, making it among the coldest temperatures ever measured in the US outside of Alaska.
    South, Middle, and Grand Teton B&W
  • Early on this morning the aurora once again returned to the skies of Wyoming. I went out stargazing with low expectations of seeing it. Statistically March is the most geomagnetically active month of the year. Magnetic field lines from the sun have an easier time connecting with Earth in the weeks surrounding the equinoxes. It only takes a slight uptick in the solar wind or a brief southern tilt of the magnetic field for the northern lights to brighten up. That's what happened at 10PM, and again after 1AM. Most of the time it was a "deep-sky aurora," which means it was too dim to see with my eyes, but it showed up on camera with a long-exposure. Although it did barely cross the threshold of naked eye visibility when I watched pillars rise up and dance around for a few minutes. After melting during the day, the sound of new ice shifting and crackling echoed across Lake DeSmet on this frosty night.
    Aurora and Ice
  • With fall off to such a cloudy start, I felt like I had to take advantage of the few hours of clear skies on this night. I ended up in a remote part of Montana, where the deer and coyotes vastly outnumber people. The dot on the map labeled Kirby is a ghost town. I couldn't find any information on what this old wooden building used to be. Perhaps it was a school, or a post office, or a general store. Or maybe it's better not to know, which makes it more mysterious. Frosty overgrown grass surrounded the leaning walls and crooked windows. The light from a distant ranch house (the only one in the area) was just enough to cast a warm glow on the front of the building.
    Timeless