Favorite Photos of 2018

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Laura Lindblom under Photography

My, how the time flies. And how sweet it is to look back over the last year and see how God has provided through everything and in ways that were absolutely not His obligation, but His gracious bounty. Pictures are a way for me to remember God’s graciousness, through the beautiful and challenging experiences of life. My photography almost always springs out of joy-giving experiences, so this collection of images from 2018 is essentially a series of joy snapshots, things that jog my memory about the goodness of the LORD over the last year, those experiences and memories that are lodged in my mind, triggered by pictures I’ve taken. Enjoy!

A beautiful drive to Lusk, Wyoming, to pick up a friend on January 2, 2018. The blowing snow was mesmerizing.
A foggy morning south of Hermosa.
Driving the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park, mere weeks after the Legion Lake Fire. The snow covered over the black of the burn, but the corral fence was a shambles.
Prairie dogs in Custer State Park after Legion Lake Fire.
Geese in Battle Creek on a cold winter morning.
Timber in Winter Storm Oliver.
My silly dog, Trixie. She’s a snow puppy!
Chickadee during a snow storm, up at Grandma’s house.
My beautiful cat, Ember. Such a sweetie.

Pasque flowers – the first signs of spring!
Custer State Park Wildlife Loop, greening up in the spring after Legion Lake Fire.
Wind Cave National Park, greening up after Legion Lake Fire. This photo and the above were taken on a sunrise drive with my dad.
Kinnikinnik. Also known as bearberry. Found on an April hike up Mt. Baldy, near Mt. Rushmore.
Wind Cave National Park – the grass came back like velvet in the burn areas!
Wildflowers in Wind Cave National Park.
Blue columbine, a rare find on a hike in Hell Canyon.
Prairie phlox, found while agate hunting near Fairburn.
Honey bee on dame’s rocket, on a walk with my sister and our dogs down by Battle Creek. We had gotten a lot of rain, and went to check how high the creek had gotten. Evening walks and hikes are such a highlight. A wild rose along the trail up to the Bear Mountain fire lookout, on an afternoon with my sisters.
Sego lilies are always fun to find. I found this one along Iron Mountain Road on a picnic with my family.
Even walking the half mile down the driveway from my Grandma’s adds a little spark of joy to my day.
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, on our way home from a Biblical Counseling Conference in Bozeman, MT.
My cat, Cinders, another kitten gifted to me by Anna. One of many fleabanes, on a hike on the Iron Mountain Loop Trail.
A signpost on the Iron Mountain Loop Trail. This picture speaks to me, somehow.
A beautiful fall sunset along the Rockerville Road.
The golden beauty of the autumn.
A favorite shot of Spearfish Falls.
Hiking boots and hiking pants. Kind of a summary of the highlights of my year!
Crow Peak, one of the best views in the Black Hills!

An attempted still life project turned into a cat photoshoot. Silly critter!
Trying to hike Mount Baldy turned into a comical misadventure when a freak snowstorm blew in!

Subtle winter beauty. The old year leaves and the new year comes in the time of the quietest beauty.

With the new year already well on its way (three weeks into January?!), I’m excited to see what God has in store for this year. And what joy snapshots will impress themselves on my heart and mind.

Hiking | Sunday Gulch Trail

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

Wow, already this has been a great year for hiking. I’m pretty excited to see where all we end up exploring this year! On January 5, we took a trip up to Sylvan Lake to hike one of the Black Hills’ legendary hikes, Sunday Gulch. Apparently this trail is closed in the winter. Oh, well. We weren’t the first to shrug our way around the gate…This hike was gorgeous when we did it in the late summer. It was even more amazing drifted over in snow! The higher elevations of the Hills, including around Sylvan Lake, get more snow and less of it melts off, so it piles up pretty fast. In places, drifts were well above the knee!Cleats were a must for this hike. We only went down the creekbed to the gulch and came back the same way, rather than doing the whole loop. The downward part was the most fun. The trail winds its way through a steep boulder field and is marked by a pair of parallel metal handrails, making descent exceptionally easy. Simply place a hand on each rail and jump, if your gloves are slick enough. You sail down sections quite effortlessly, and I’m sure we looked ridiculous.
The gulch itself was enchanting, with the creek frozen and still flowing beneath the ice, and snow mounded up in soft contours out of the way of wind. It was beautiful. It looked so different with the snow cover, and the late afternoon light was gentle and cold.
Nothing like some brisk, strenuous hiking on a chilly January day!

Hiking | Spring Creek Loop Trail

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

Nothing like a brisk hike on a winter day! The sun was out, though tucked behind hills much of the hike, and the creek, partly frozen, chattered and chuckled comfortably along the trail.Spring Creek Loop is a spur off the Centennial and Flume Trails, and can be hiked from Sheridan Lake for a 4 mile hike, or from Spring Creek Trailhead for a 2.5 mile hike. A beautiful option for a quick excursion! The trail is relatively level for the most part, with a few creek crossings over narrow footbridges. A couple of years ago, the footbridges were a disaster and crossing them was a comical chore.Sheridan Lake was at the halfway point on this hike, more or less. The ice on the lake was thick and black and clear, and we skated cautiously out onto it, listening to the ice singing and chattering to itself, scurrying off again when we stood too close together and started a crack which followed us back to shore. Ice fisherman way across the lake had their fourwheelers out, taking advantage of the sunshine. Snow whispered across the gleaming surface of the lake, ghostly and gentle. It was so beautiful and blue under the clear sky.
So many beautiful sights. Hops vines still had their little golden cones hanging from them like Christmas ornaments, and frosty jewels studded the frozen creek, feathery and delicate. What a beautiful afternoon. And what a way to (almost) welcome in the New Year.

Winter Could Last Forever

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under country life, Photography, Writing

Something about winter’s subtle beauty always tugs at my heart. There is a beauty present that is otherworldly, and almost invisible, often somehow entirely other from the object being admired. It doesn’t draw attention to itself, and maybe it is the very fact that it doesn’t that makes it so alluring to me.

Delicately-striped fungus on a decaying log. Sunlight filtering through the paper-thin sepals of a dried seed-pod or flower head. Ripples in dunes of snow. A cat’s warm fur when the thermometer is reading about 15 degrees. Sunlight. The sunlight itself is different.Winter is a wonderful time of year. There is a peace, yet an anticipation. There is a rest and a sleep, a slumbering, and yet the cold brings out a quiet energy that everything seems ready to burst into peals of laughter at any moment. There is the warmth, strange warmth, of sunlight on my face, and yet the chattering of my wet-now-frozen hair rattling against itself. There is the frigid cold of face and too-warm warmth of body that comes from overzealous layering. There are the billows of steam when our front door opens, tiny cat prints in the snow, sleeping cats in the cabin, reluctant to go outside. There’s the sparkle of fresh snow, the hush of falling snow, the crunch of snow underfoot. Flowers of frost on windows, glassy lakes, and white-drifted roads.

On beautiful days like today, winter could last forever.

Hiking | Little Elk Creek Trail

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

Oh, back when the weather was warmer…However, warmer doesn’t mean warm. On this particular hike, Axel, Katie, and I all were a bit chilly for the first while, having not considered the morning shade in the canyon. We were treated to some of the first glimpses of winter, with persistent ice over parts of Little Elk Creek, beautiful frozen, frosted, filigreed leaves, and the nipping of the crisp, morning air at our cheeks and noses. Autumn was still hanging on by a thread, and not all the trees had dropped their leaves, but the crispness and the frost let us know that winter was on its way.
Little Elk Creek Trail is a well-maintained trail, approximately 5 miles out-and-back, used by hikers, bikers, and trail runners. It is mostly level, with very little elevation gain, and though it is rated as moderate according to All Trails, I would definitely rate it as easy. Perhaps the length is where the moderate rating comes in. I don’t know.The trail follows along or above Little Elk Creek, though some beautiful rock formations and canyon areas, boasting many beautiful views. Across the creek from the trail, shaded north slopes were green with moss, steep and rocky, and very different from the brown, sunlit slopes the trail followed. We met a few other hikers, but it was a quiet trail. It is a ways off the beaten path, and likely not a lively tourist destination, since most tourists would probably hike around Sylvan Lake and Custer State Park, the crown jewels of the Black Hills. But this lovely hike is worth the time to get there.
And as always in the Black Hills, if you can tear your gaze from the soaring beauty of the trees, spires, canyons, and blue, blue sky, there are other things to marvel at as well. Things like friendship, for one. What a gift God gave when He created people, plural. He meant for us to live in community and fellowship with one another, and hiking with my brothers and sisters in Christ is one of my greatest joys at this time of my life. And then there are the tiny, almost-trodden on things, like abandoned bird nests and rushes growing green along the creek. It is so easy to focus so intently on the big picture that a million priceless glimpses of joy are lost.

Hiking | Lover’s Leap

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

It has been a few years since I hiked Lover’s Leap, and on a free morning last week we managed to get out there for a beautiful quick hike in our beautiful autumn weather. I love short hikes with some good hill climbing, and Lover’s Leap fits the bill. It is an easy to moderate 4.4 mile loop, best hiked clockwise, with a steady uphill climb for the first mile and a half, and then a gentle downhill or level trail for the rest of the hike. The trail name refers to legend of two Native American lovers who were fleeing from the United States Cavalry and jumped to their deaths from what we now know as Lover’s Leap. The trailhead is located near the Game Lodge in Custer State Park. After about a half mile, maybe less, the trail splits. We took the left hand trail and hiked it clockwise. The trail features diversity of landscape, with beautifully maintained ponderosa pine forest, sweeping views of the Hills glimpsed between the trees, colorful hardwoods along the creek in the lower elevations of the hike, and of course the glorious views from the top of Lover’s Leap. A good part of this area was also burned during the Legion Lake Fire, adding to the diversity of the sights. Stark black tree trunks give evidence to the ferocity of the fire in those areas. Although it may look ugly now, as the trees either naturally fall or are felled over the next years, and the grass and plant life returns, those areas will be transformed and beautiful. A sign at the base of the short scramble to the top of Lover’s Leap reads:

Custer State Park is a place where one can still be an unworried and unregimented individual and wear any old clothes and sit on a log and get his sanity back again.Notice the scratch markings in the bottom left corner of the sign before the word “sanity.” That used to read “his.” What occurs to me as I read this sign with the word “his” scratched out is that whoever it was that defaced this sign clearly hadn’t taken advantage of sitting on a log and getting his–sorry, her (probably, right?) sanity back.
This is the kind of hike I hate to finish. The trail was so peaceful and beautiful, the sunlight filtering through the trees was magical, and the sense of autumn was glorious. Definitely a day for stomping through the woods and getting one’s sanity back again. I guess that’s one of the things I love about hiking. Cares of the world tumble away and cease to matter, and worries cease to plague me, the craziness of our current culture and politics and worldview battles disappear for a time, and a sense of perspective returns in the vastness and beauty of God’s creation, in the rhythm of footfall and breath.