After a long, snowy winter here in Canada, I can barely look at more snow and this picture isn’t really helping with that. But at the same time, I’m always amazed at how beautiful the snow in the mountains can look. There’s something about how it can cling to the faces and peaks of mountains and smooth out even the most gnarly of features. And the contrast that it makes with the dark rock completely changes the appearance of the mountains.

This picture was taken just off of the Icefields Parkway north of Jasper one day when a group of us were skiing at Crowfoot Glades. We had plans to do the Wapta Traverse that weekend, but with some bad avalanche conditions we decided to pull the plug and do some skiing in safer terrain. With some warm weather and good snow, however, we still had a brilliant day. How couldn’t you, when you’re surrounded by terrain like this though!