Utah's Wasatch Front experiences a widespread temperature inversion during the winter. This phenomenon causes an enormous pollution cloud, even larger than the one emitted by Al Gore's personal residence, to hover over the valley.
Spending any time outdoors under these conditions is akin to huffing oxides of nitrogen directly from the exhaust pipe of a 1970 AMC Gremlin.
Occasionally a storm of sufficient strength blows through and sweeps the toxic atmosphere up into the jet stream, where it is often mistaken for Icelandic volcano ash and grounds all flights in France.
We experienced one such storm system late last week and had glorious, clean air for the weekend. It was nice just to be outside. I didn't get any images that I'd consider "keepers" but a few birds were in the air and I dusted off the shutter to get in the groove.
I'm hoping the next month or so brings some additional opportunities.
