Alpenglow: Pennsylvania Style

"There's the wonder of sunset at evening,
The wonder as sunrise I see;
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul
Is the wonder that God loves me."

We sang the words to this hymn in church this morning ('The Wonder of it All' by George Beverly Shea).  Since I was planning to write about Alpenglow - the beautiful, almost unexplainable special light occasionally seen at sunrise and sunset, it was really neat to have that particular song chosen as one of our worship hymns just before I was going to write this post.
 
We don't live in the Alps... or even very high mountains-- but our hills are really beautiful anyway, especially now with the trees almost at their peak of fall color. Whether this is a photo of Alpenglow or not, I cannot be sure....

Alpenglow is light which occurs at sunrise or sunet, after the sun has gone just below the horizon.  Since the sun is low, the light has no direct path to touch the mountain, but is light reflected off particles in the sky, such as water, snow, or ice droplets.  Another possiblity for the light is that if you were high on the mountain, you would still be able to see the sun.  Whichever is the reason, it's really beautiful!

 It is the prettiest in the fall, when there is already a glow from the colors of the leaves, but it can happen anytime of year.

As I said earlier, it can also happen at sunrise or sunset.  These next photos are from just before sunrise.  I'm going to put the times they were taken in the captions.  After I took the first two photos, I turned in the opposite direction and took one looking toward the sunrise (which hadn't happened yet!)

7 : 36 : 26 a.m.

7 : 36 : 56 a.m.

7 : 37 : 15 a.m.

I think in this case, the sunlight was reflecting off the air droplets in the clouds above the trees on the hill, since I don't think the sun was high enough in the sky for its light to be hitting them directly.  That would fit the definition of Alpenglow.  

Either way, Alpenglow or simply direct sunshine lighting up the top of the mountains, I'm in awe of the wonderful beauty of it!