Elk at Night

From December through March, the lights on Elk Mountain are a comforting sight. If it’s snowing, and you can’t see the lights, it means it is snowing good and hard. If it’s not snowing, it’s just nice to see the lights. When cross-country skiing at night, the lights from Elk illuminate the East Branch Valley plenty enough to skim the meadows; the lights of Scranton glowing behind the horizon. The past few weeks, the lights from Elk have been competing with a pulsing glow emanating from just behind East Mountain – the source, hundred foot flames shooting from a gas well as the initial impure gas is being burned off.

In the image above, one can make out two bright white lights to the right of the illuminated trails, the headlights of snow grooming tractors, climbing up the dark Lackawanna ski trail. Soon, the lights from the grooming tractors will be the only lights visible on the mountain as night skiing season comes to an end in a week or so.

And finally, sometime soon before April, Elk will remain dark throughout the night, becoming less prominent, reminding us that Spring is emerging.