Travel photo of the day: Alaska's snow-covered spruce

Gretchen Griswold / UGC

Snow-covered black spruce north of the Yukon, Alaska.

Gretchen Griswold, of San Diego, Calif., recently decided to fulfill her dream of seeing the aurora borealis, the glow of stars and color that is otherwise known as the northern lights. She traveled to Alaska in March with her sister-in-law and encountered this snow-covered landscape north of the Yukon.

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"We hired a guide to take us up to the Arctic Circle and the drive took us through ghostly landscapes of frozen trees and tundra," Griswold told TODAY.com. "As we drove, I was awed by the vista presented by these trees and asked the guide to pull off the road so we could walk (or really, stomp through knee-deep snow) a little so we could get a better vantage point."?

Griswold said it was -23 degrees, with an estimated -20 degree wind chill, when she took the photo. "It was a quick drill to capture the scene," she said.?

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