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January 13, 2023

Favorite Images of 2022

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we’ve been invited to share our favorite images of 2022. I’ve been sharing this year’s favorite images in my last two posts, so I won’t be revisiting those images here. You can go back and look at those posts if you missed them!

One of my favorite images of 2022 — The God rays are still one of my favorites!

But I would love to share some other favorites. A few of them I’ve published in earlier posts, but most are brand new. It seems my favorite images change weekly! Because of the scarcity of electricity and internet access during my summer months in Alaska, I have still not caught up with my image processing for the past year, and I discover new favorites every day.

Cascade Falls Moran State Park, WA — This is becoming my favorite abstract image for 2022.

There are so many photos I haven’t even really looked at yet, including winter in Arches and most of my fall shots from Alaska and Washington State. It’s like Christmas every day for me as I continually find new favorite images.

I saw some amazing places in 2022. One that has been on my mind continually this week is the California Coast. Most winters I spend either January or February on the California Coast. I’m not there this year, which may be a blessing. My heart goes out to all the folks struggling with too much of a good thing, with the atmospheric river and torrential flooding.

I spent the month of February 2022 housesitting in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay. I was 4 blocks from the coast and made a point of doing photography nearly every day while I was there. That is also the batch of work I am currently processing, so a lot of my favorite images in this post are from that visit.

Another fantastic roadtrip was driving the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. It was on my bucket list for years, but usually this is a road that requires 4-wheel drive. I called the ranger station to see if it would be safe to drive in just a couple of miles to do some dispersed camping and the ranger told me the road was in great shape and my little Toyota truck would make it end-to-end just fine! Quick change of plans for me, I could not miss that opportunity. The highlight was visiting Grosvenor Arch, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it would be.

I’ve also spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park this year. I haven’t processed the fall images yet, but I’ve included a spring sunset in this collection.

My last post included a lot of my favorites from the time I spent at home in Alaska, but I am revisiting my favorite flower photo from this summer.

Bog Bean flowers — I love the pattern displayed by the flowers and their shadows in this image.

My best sunset/sunrise of the year was traveling south down Canada’s Cassiar Highway. Every image in the series is so rich and so different. That sunset went through every shade a sunset could possibly have. Intense. I did a series on Instagram last week with a few of these images, 7 Shades of Sunset.

This image looks like I tweaked the color in LightRoom, but honest, it was really that red. I did not saturate the color, I even used Adobe Neutral as my color profile. I published a different swatch from that evening’s palette of hues in last week’s post, ‘cuz this one looked too over the top to me. But now I think it is my favorite.

I traveled the Mt. Baker Highway for the first time this fall. Although the conditions were less than ideal due to wildfire smoke, I was amazed at the astounding views and the easy access to hiking in the alpine. I can only imagine how stunning it must be when there’s no smoke. A new favorite place, I will definitely be checking that road out again!

And of course now, I’m on Orcas Island for the winter, where there are some lovely waterfalls. This image is a favorite.

I look forward to seeing what favorite images 2023 will bring. If you have been following my travels on Facebook, though, it seems that Facebook has not been circulating my posts much lately. I urge you to subscribe to my blog instead, so that you won’t miss a post.

Happy 2023!

North Cascades National Park — I had to include some fall color.

January 7, 2022

My Favorite Photos of 2021

I tried to keep it down to 12, but I couldn’t. Here is a baker’s dozen of my favorite photos of 2021.

It was really hard to cut it down to just a baker’s dozen. Reviewing the images I’ve captured over the last year, I realized that what I had were favorite photographic moments, not individual photos.

Alaska alpenglow in the Chugach Mountains — Purple Mountain’s Majesty, a favorite photographic moment.

You know, when you’re really in the zone, actively practicing the Art of Seeing? You might take a whole series of shots and not be able to choose one in the series as the best. That’s how I felt about a lot of these images.

I tried to disqualify images I’d already published in this blog (mostly!) So if you read my last few blog posts, you’ll find a few more favorites I wish I could include.

Alaska alpenglow Chugach Mountains — Knik Glacier

Despite all the darkness and cold, there are some things about winter in Alaska that are really special and that I miss when I’m not there, kind of a reward for those who tough it out. One is the aurora, of course. Another is the special pink sunset/twilight glow in the sky on certain cold, clear nights. Although I got lots of great alpenglow, I didn’t see as many pink light evenings as I have in past winters. But I did get it one evening when I photographed the Knik Glacier.

I went to Homer to see a few birds this spring. The migration was a bit disappointing, but I did get some wonderful eagle shots!

This is my favorite flower shot for 2021. I didn’t shoot nearly as many flowers as in years past, since I stayed in Alaska and didn’t follow the bloom. But I saw two brand new flowers I’d never noticed before in a few ponds along the McCarthy Road, White Water Lilies and Wild Calla.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico — Sunrise on the Bosque

It was October. It was not yet prime time for birds at Bosque del Apache. Due to the drought, the ponds on the edge of the refuge that are usually the go-to spots for bird photographers trying to catch the spectacle of the Bosque were dry. I wasn’t expecting much. I only had one day to spare. But the Bosque is a magical place and doesn’t disappoint. Having fewer sources of water concentrated the birds that were there. I was surprised to realize that three of my favorite photos for the entire year were taken on that day.

Even though I published the sunrise photo in a prior post, I had to include it since it was probably my second-most favorite photo for the year. Also, I processed it a little differently this time and think it does a better job of capturing the feel of sunrise on the Bosque.

Vesper Sparrows — Every leaf on this tree is a bird.

As I slowly drove by, I realized that all those “dead leaves” on that tree were birds. Then they took off and I was swept up by a cloud of birds. The Bosque is bird heaven!

California Coastal National Monument — Sunset on the beach at San Simeon

This might be my favorite photo of 2021. Except it’s one of those photographic moments, one of a series… I like the vertical images I captured of this scene a lot, too! Both this image and the feature image were taken on the beach at San Simeon in California. The island the cormorants are roosting on is part of the California Coastal National Monument. It is usually just offshore except during a very low tide, like this one.

I absolutely fell in love with the manzanitas and madrones of southern Oregon in November and December. I can’t choose my very favorite madrone/manzanita photo. I have about 20 favorites. But they were my favorite thing to photograph all year. So here’s one I haven’t published.

Cathedral Hills, Oregon — Manzanita Bark

I couldn’t choose a favorite detail shot of that forest, either. I have about a dozen favorites of bark, lichens, mushrooms… But this is definitely one of those favorites.

Skyline Trail, Cathedral Hills, Oregon — What is it?

This is definitely my favorite abstract of the year, though. Can you guess what it is?

Williams, Oregon — Wishing you all a great 2022!

This final shot conveys my thoughts and hopes for 2022, that the light burns through the fog of the last couple of crazy years and brings us all many happy blessings. Welcome 2022!

Thank you to Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles for hosting this week’s Lens Artists Challenge, Favorite Photos of 2021.

April 16, 2021

(Wishing For) The Colors of April

April is not a very colorful month in Alaska. It’s Breakup, that weird season in between winter and spring, and frankly, breakup is messy and not so attractive. Morning ice skating rinks give way to afternoon mud bogs and slush piles . Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Postholing through the unevenly melting snowpack is tiring and tedious. The predominant colors are brown, gray, white, and dead grass yellow. The only pastel is the sky on the occasional sunny day when it’s not raining, sleeting or snowing.

Even so, we’re all celebrating. The thermometer actually rises above freezing and soon, soon, soon the snow will be gone and summer will be here. Already the days are long and the twilight lingers.

But I miss color. I miss my wildflowers. Although I’ve spent a lot of winters in Alaska in the past, for over a dozen years I’ve been snowbirding it, heading south to the desert or the West Coast for the winter. It’s a lifestyle I love.

Briceberg River Road — My favorite Sierra campground along the Merced River.

Last year at this time I was in lockdown in Las Vegas, one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The colors of April, found in the wastelands on the outskirts of town, were my salvation during this insane interlude.

Prickly Poppy — Wildflowers from the Vegas Wastelands

Purple Mat — Wildflowers from the Vegas Wastelands

Most years, though, I spend the month of March immersed in the wildflowers of the California desert. Then as the flowers move up in elevation in April, I follow along, chasing the bloom.

April is also the month that the cactus are in bloom.

By the middle of the month, heat and wind begin to take their toll on the flowers, and on me. It’s time to go North, time to go home, following the flowers.

My new favorite place to begin this journey is Carrizo Plain National Monument. The flowers grow thicker here than anywhere else I’ve ever been. It’s something to ponder, that the entire Central Valley once looked like this.

Carrizo Plains National Monument — Camping in Carrizo

From there I move on, hopscotching my way along the Sierra’s western foothills, following the path of the Gold Rush on the trail of Highway 49, with a drive through the Yosemite valley along the way.

I’ll head west to the redwoods in Mendocino County and enjoy that other color of April, green, for a day or two on my way to Oregon.

I might visit friends in southern Oregon in the Grant’s Pass area, an April wildflower delight indeed.

From there, time and flowers are both getting scarce. I’ve still got a few days to enjoy the coast on my way to Canada. It’s breakup in Canada, too, though, so I bomb through and reach Alaska right at the end of April – just in time for the first Pasque flowers of the season.

Thank you, Amy for this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photo Challenge – the Colors of April. You’ve made me really miss my spring flowers!

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021

A Change of Scenery – The Redwood Forest

So it’s spring. At least that’s what I hear. In Alaska, it’s hard telling. The days are longer, but temperatures are still hovering somewhere between 10 below and 10 above (Fahrenheit) when I wake up, and it never gets above freezing most days. White is the predominant color. The only other colors you see are the brownish-gray of bark and the deep dark green of the evergreen spruce trees. It will be quite a while yet before the snow melts.

Hatcher's Pass, Alaska — It’s a monochrome landscape in Alaska right now.

I miss color. For over a decade, I spent every March in the California desert, chasing the wildflower bloom. I’m really missing those flowers. My only consolation is that the desert wildflower season this year is a bust because it has been so dry. If I’m going to miss a year, this was a good year to miss.

But I’m still craving color, and warmth. It’s going to be locked in white here, and anywhere else I could drive to, for quite a few more weeks yet. I could use a change of scenery.

Redwood Sorrel — I miss color, and flowers – like this redwood sorrel from the redwood forest.

If there are no flowers in the desert, I guess I should look somewhere else for color. How about the redwood forests of northern California? There’s plenty of green there and a few flowers, too. Might be a nice place to travel to, even if it is only in my imagination!{

Trillium change color as they grow older, turning from white to pink to red.

Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, over 50 feet taller than any other species. They are one of the largest trees on the planet, too. Redwood trees you can drive through are a popular northern California tourist attraction.

They are fast-growing and long-lived. Although the average age for an old-growth redwood is 500 to 600 years, some specimens have been recorded at over 2,200 years old!

Jedidiah Smith State Park, CA — Redwood trees are massive!

Redwood trees are water hogs. They have to be, they’re so tall. It’s hard for water to make it all the way from the roots to the crown, 100 meters up. Even though they live in a seasonally rainy climate, the trees depend on fog to survive. They can absorb water through their bark and their leaves, and 30% of their water needs are filled by fog.

Mendocino County — Fog is essential for a redwood tree’s survival.

The rainier and foggier it is, the taller the trees grow. The tallest redwoods grow deep in the valleys where the fog settles in. One of the challenges facing redwood trees in these days of global climate change is that there is much less fog than there used to be along the northern California coast.

Russian Gulch State Park, CA — Redwoods need a lot of water.

Once their forests spread for millions of acres throughout California’s central and northern coastal lands, all the way from Big Sur to southern Oregon. Then gold was discovered in 1849.

Redwood trees were a lumberman’s dream come true. Not only were the trees humongous, the wood was really something special. Light and beautiful, it absorbed water and resisted rot because of all the tannins it contained. Low in resins, it was also much more resistant to fire than most woods.

Avenue of the Giants — Redwood trees built San Francisco both before and after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Less than 5% of the original old-growth forest remains. These forests, which had thrived undisturbed for thousands of years, were decimated in less than one human lifetime.

By 1908, the California Federation of Women’s Clubs presented a children’s petition with 2,000 signatures to the Forest Service, asking them to protect some of the remaining trees for future generations, to create a national redwood park before they were all gone.

Navarro River Redwoods — Redwood bark is resistant to fire.

By 1918 the Save the Redwoods League formed, part of the same conservation movement that created the National Park Service. In fact, Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, was an integral part of the formation of the League.

However, there was no Redwoods National Park until 1968. Instead, the Save the Redwoods League saved the trees. They raised money and bought up tracts of virgin redwood forest wherever and whenever they could. Eventually, they established 66 different redwood parks and reserves. Many of these groves formed the backbone of California’s state park system.

All these facts and figures and history of the redwoods may be fascinating, but there are no words to describe the most important things about a redwood forest. Anyone who has spent time in the redwoods would agree, though.

These forests are magical. They’re enchanted. Although they have no words, these ancient beings will speak to you if you give them a chance. Call me a treehugger, but a living redwood is a sentient being.

Walking in a redwood forest is a healing experience, a meditation. You will emerge a calmer and wiser soul than you were when you arrived. I highly recommend it for the next time you are craving a change of scenery.

Thank you, Beth, of Wandering Dawgs, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, “A Change of Scenery”.

March 18, 2021March 24, 2021

An Unusual Occurrence – Death Valley Rain Events

A rain event in Death Valley is a very unusual occurrence. After all, it IS the driest place in North America. With only about 2 inches of precipitation a year, rainstorms don’t happen very often. Rain events are even rarer.

I worked at Death Valley for 8 winter/spring seasons. In that time, I witnessed 2 rain events.

Standing at the mouth of Titus Canyon watching the first rainstorm of February 2010 come in over the Panamints

A rain event is much more than just a rainstorm. it has long-lasting repercussions. It can totally transform a landscape, and those transformations are part of the event. These are indeed special moments.

Death Valley National Park — Badwater Salt Flats after the first storm

My first rain event was in 2010. During the winter of 2009/2010, it didn’t rain at all. All the oldtimers said it would be a poor flower year that spring. Too dry.

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes — I spent a lot of time hiking the sand dunes that February because there were many times that the canyons were too dangerous. It rained and rained and rained.

Then February came, and with it, a series of Pineapple Express storms. A Pineapple Express is an atmospheric river formed above the ocean waters near Hawaii. Coming from the south, they dodge the high Sierras, leaving them with plenty of water to dump on Death Valley. We got 3 storms in a row. That February we received an inch and a half of rain. It was the rainiest February in Death Valley’s history.

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes & Grapevine Mountains — The sand dunes were transformed into a desert oasis.

It was so wet that pools formed in the sand dunes, the only time I ever saw that happen. It looked like a true desert oasis.

Alpenglow on the Grapevine Mountains reflected in an ephemeral pool

The biggest change, though, was the Badwater Salt Flats. The salt flats were transformed into a lake, filled with about 7 inches of water for miles in every direction. There was so much water a friend went kayaking just for the photo op. With all the fresh snow on the Panamints, this symbol of the driest of deserts became almost alpine in appearance.

The oldtimers still predicted a poor flower year, though. They said the rain came too late and there wouldn’t be time for the tender seedlings to get a good start before it became too hot.

They were wrong.

Notchleaf Phacelia — 2010 turned out to be a good flower year after all.

My second rain event was the big one, a historic one, the great flood event of Sunday, October 17, 2015. It destroyed half the highways in the park. Scotty’s Castle is still closed due to this rainstorm.

It was literally my first day back to the park for the season. I needed to go to Pahrump, the nearest town, 60 miles away, to stock up since I was just moving in. It had been raining off and on for 2 days. My boss told me to be careful, there was flash flooding down by Death Valley Junction.

I made it through the water at that low spot alright, but that afternoon the storms came back in with a vengeance. I could hear the radio reports as I shopped, the calamitous beeping that heralded a severe weather alert. When I walked outside, I could see the blackest sky ever out towards the Northwest, contrasting sharply with the brilliant flashes of dozens of lightning strikes.

I tried to hurry home. Things were starting to look serious. I knew I had to hustle to make it before the road was closed at Death Valley Junction. It had started raining, hard, and the thunder and lightning to the Northwest was truly something to behold. A light show, Fourth of July fireworks! I’ve never seen so many lightning strikes. I thought to myself that I was glad I wasn’t at Scotty’s Castle. Things looked really bad in that direction.

But they were bad enough where I was. Would I make it in time? The road started to get sketchy. I could see the edges crumbling and I knew for safety’s sake I had to try a different route. They closed that highway less than 10 minutes after I turned around. More than the edges had crumbled.

I thought I’d go the long way around, up north towards Beatty. I was stopped by the sheriff. That road was out, too. I ended up spending the night with a friend, a woman I worked with who lived in Pahrump.

Badwater Road and Telescope Peak January 2016

We headed out in caravan to reach the park early the next morning, in radio contact with the park maintenance crew. There was one route that just might work. There was lots of water running on the road as we crossed washes. One crossing was doubtful. I could feel my little truck slow down and threaten to stall out. I was really glad we were caravaning. In hindsight, I wouldn’t cross water like that again. Within half an hour of when we went through, that road closed, too. But we made it.

The October monthly precipitation average for Death Valley is .07 inches. Death Valley received 1.3 inches of rain in October 2015, nearly all of it from the October 17 storm. That storm caused a lot of destruction to man-made structures and roads. But it also made some amazing changes to the landscape.

Greenwater Road — Imagine the ground growing thick like this with flowers – everywhere – for miles upon miles

Of course, Badwater Basin once again filled with water. No kayaking this time, though. By the time the road crew had cleared and repaired the road as far as Badwater the water levels were already down too far for that. Mud and debris flows trashed the Badwater Road. The southern part of the road was completely destroyed, the pavement twisted and shredded.

The change that impressed me the most, though, was at Artist’s Drive. A debris flow had completely inundated the main canyon, filling it brim to brim and splashing ten to twelve feet up the walls in places. This layer of mud is now a permanent part of Death Valley’s geological record, a layer of rock that will still show up thousands of years from now. I love to see geology happen!

And then, starting as early as the end of December, the flowers came out. And continued to come out, month after month, all the way to May. They were so thick on the ground you couldn’t take a step without trampling a flower. And they were all supersized, too.

For instance, Desert Five-Spot is usually a shy flower; the plant grows about 6 inches high, with only a few blossoms on each plant. In dry years, it will dwarf into a tiny belly flower only an inch or two high with one blossom. But during the 2016 Death Valley superbloom, I found a veritable plantation of five-spot bushes, all about 3 feet high with dozens of blossoms. One plant had 53 flowers! What a difference a little rain makes!

Death Valley Superbloom 2016 — Desert 5-spot

Although the Artist’s Drive debris flow was the most thrilling change for me intellectually, the wildflower bloom is what struck my heart. It was the ultimate of all the special moments I’ve experienced in my Death Valley rain events.

Thank you, Tina of Travels and Trifles, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Special Moments.

February 23, 2021March 3, 2021

Fun With the Letter S

Opening shot: Solitude at Sunset by the Seaside

Mendocino County, CA — Sunrise Silhouettes

Tuscon, AZ — (P)sychedelic Saguaro Sunset

Death Valley CA — Soft sensuous sand dunes

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Patti @ Pilotfishblog asks, “What images can you find that feature a subject that begins with the letter S? For an added challenge, capture an image that illustrates a concept with the letter S, such as serene, sharp, spooky, or silent.” So, see if I have succeeded!