I was pretty jaded when we arrived in Front Royal, and the weather had changed from partly cloudy to THIS. This would be one of several attempts I had made during months of inclement weather to traverse the length of Skyline Drive without having to make a detour or get cut off because of poor road conditions. On this trip we had to give up at the Skyland exit due to the road beyond being closed and covered in ice.

At first I was in a bad mood because I had a different agenda in terms of the kinds of photos I wanted to capture. Every time I looked up the clouds were conforming to the shapes of the mountains they envelop and creating these crazy patterns. It felt like I was living underneath a cotton candy sky. I chose instead to focus on capturing that aspect of the day. The mountains in the background are purposely underexposed to focus on the could formations.

Out of all the images captured that day, this was the most striking.

KEYWORDS

shenandoah; national; park; virginia; parks; nature; clouds; overcast; mountains; skyline; drive; blue; ridge; parkway;