High in the Italian Alps the air is clear and the contrasts stark. The first image is taken not long after sunrise as the light illuminates the upper slopes. For contrast the second is unset, the fading light with a mix of pastel shades together with bare rock and ice.

For the New Year M&M and I went to Limone, a small town in the Alps in NW Italy. Pretty place and, being Italy, great food and wine. And yours truly tried skiing for the first time ever. Well I won’t say I was a natural, but I had a good teacher who took things gradually, so I only ended up on my backside once.

And, in addition to the eating, drinking and skiing we also did some walking on the lower slopes. It was cold, yet not too cold and the end result were some amazing ice formations on rocks and branches that overhung the mountain streams. We were truly in the Goldilocks zone, any colder and the streams would simply have frozen, any warmer and they would have simply been mountain streams. But in the ‘just right’ Goldilocks zone the streams flowed, and the splashes froze as they hit the rocks and branches. An icy dance for Gaia.

So we made our way down the mountain slowly. And as we got back to our starting point the last of the Autumn sunlight lit up the bracken at  the top of opposite slope, Red Screes, whilst the darkness gathered on the lower areas.

And we had a much earned beer at the Kirkstone Pass Inn, the highest Inn in England.  Funny bjust how good a beer tastes when you  have earned it. I have remarked how the walk earns you a view you could never get otherwise, a view that no money can buy; well I suppose, if you want to be picky, if you had enough money you could get your helicopter to take you there, but that well earned beer is priceless.