As we all know, the days are shorter in winter. However, when you are surrounded by mountains, days are dramatically shortened. Why? Because the sun hides behind the mountains when it is rising and quickly sets behind the mountains in the evening. This picture is from today at 9:00 a.m. The sun still hasn't risen above the mountain in front of the Overlook, Giant Track Mountain. You can see it on the right side of the picture where it is about to break free. It rises on the left side of this mountain and follows the contour of the mountain up and to the right without ever rising above the actual profile. As a result, the first time we see the sun is just after 9:00 a.m. If this doesn't shorten the day enough, it settles behind Eagle Cliff Mountain around 3:00 p.m. This leaves us with just six hours of sunlight each day during the winter. As you can imagine, this makes it difficult to melt snow in winter, and challenging to start a garden in the spring.