A grouping of Japanese White Birch (Betula platyphylla) lift naked branches into the fog and snow of autumn's first storm in the Jigokudani Mountains, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

We stayed for a few days in the mountains Northeast of Nagano, near where the winter Olympics were held in 1998. I planned a glorious all-day hike in autumn sun. Combining plans with mountain weather is apparently a fool's enterprise... Going up even higher was obviously pointless since one would be enshrouded in cloud for every moment of the effort. So we turned around and walked down-mountain instead, through meadows fringed with birch forests and bracken that gave way to cypress and a low bamboo-like plant that dominated the understory. Snow gathered quietly in the creases as we walked. The breath hung like dense smoke before becoming one with the freezing mist.

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Make:	NIKON CORPORATION
Model:	NIKON D750
Exposure:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture:	f/11.0
ISO Speed:	125
Focal Length:	120 mm
Lens:	24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0