redwoods Archives ~ Rambling ranger

December 16, 2023

Magical Places

University Peak, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve

Well, it’s almost Christmas and Winter Solstice is only a few days away. Kind of reminds me of a Dar Williams song, “Christians and the Pagans”. (Give it a listen) There’s a line in that song, “And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere, ”

I’m a pagan at heart, it’s nearly Winter Solstice, and I do find magic everywhere, especially in the natural world. So here are a few of the places and things I find magical.

Mountains

Denali National Park — A magical alpine landscape

I’ve always been a mountain girl, and it’s not only the big peaks that are magical. I’m in love with the alpine, the land above treeline. Not just the big views, either, but every little detail. Especially the little details. There’s another Lilliputian world there if you look closely, and it’s a magical place.

Alpine wildflowers in Denali National Park. — There’s a whole other world beneath your feet!

.I used to play a game with my visitors when I did Discovery Hikes as a ranger in Denali. I would give them circles of string, about six inches in diameter, and have them enclose a patch of alpine tundra. I would ask them to count all the living species they could find in their circle. Then I would hand out magnifying glasses and have them count again. They always found more the second time around, with that closer look!

Water

Golden Falls, Coast Range, Oregon — Waterfalls are magical. Do you see the face in the rocks to the right of the falls?

Water is life. Literally. Without water, there is no life. It’s a magical substance. And there’s this weird thing that happens occasionally when I photograph waterfalls. Although I don’t see it when I’m making the shot, I will sometimes find a face in the photo (the spirit of the waterfall?) when I open it up to process. That’s what happened in this image. Can you see the face? It’s magical.

Trees

Navarro River State Park, CA — Redwoods are amazing trees.

There are a lot of magical trees out there. Have you ever meditated with a redwood? Or wandered through the fairyland of a temperate rainforest, like you might find in the Pacific Northwest?

Hall of Mosses is a magical trail. — Olympic National Park has some magical forests.

One of the most magical kinds of forests I’ve ever seen are the Madrone/Manzanita woodlands of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, with trees that look like women, decorated with delicate lichens and moss. Magical.

Tidepools

Bandon, Oregon — Tide pools on Bandon Beach

Tide pools are magical places. Especially to me. I’ve been on a mission to find good tide pools, and I’m not always successful. Timing is everything. If you don’t have a real low tide, forget it. But I got lucky last spring, twice; once at Bandon, my favorite spot on the whole Oregon Coast, and then at Cape Perpetua. I scored an awesome campsite with great wildflowers at Cape Perpetua, too.

Ochre Sea Stars on the Oregon coast — Sea Stars are making a comeback!

One of the most miraculous discoveries in my successful tidepooling this spring was that sea stars are coming back! Decimated by sea star wasting disease, it’s been years since there was a healthy starfish population anywhere on the Pacific Coast, but there were a lot of them in Oregon this spring. Brings joy to my heart

Desert

Shakespeare Arch, Kodachrome Basin — Arches are ephemeral.

Arches and natural bridges are pretty magical, too. I listed them under desert to go with my photo, but you can also find them on the coast, products of erosion, sculpted by the waves. In the desert it’s the wind doing the carving for an arch, and water for the natural bridges.

These nature sculptures are ephemeral. beings. You never know how long they will last. The arch in this photo, Shakespeare Arch, is already gone, collapsing a couple of years ago. I’m glad I saw it when I did because it was a beauty, now gone forever.

Another magical product of erosion are slot canyons. All canyons are magical, never knowing but eagerly anticipating what’s around the next bend as you hike up one. Slots just bring the excitement up a notch, with the beauty of their polished walls and the way they have of drawing you in, deeper and deeper.

Springtime in Death Valley National Park — Flowers in the desert can be magical.

A good wildflower season in the desert is definitely magical. To see a landscape that is pretty bleak most of the time, nothing but dirt and rocks, transform into a veritable garden of delight, completely drenched with flowers – well, it’s got to be seen to be believed. Maybe we’ll get lucky this year. Fingers crossed.

Magical Death Valley National Park — It’s not only the quantity of flowers that blows me away, it’s the incredible variety.

Home

Last, but not least, I live in a magical place. When I first came to McCarthy, I felt like I’d discovered Never Never Land. It was a place where you never had to grow up, unique, like nowhere else in the world. That was before social media, before McCarthy was discovered by the rest of the world.

Perhaps it’s not quite so magical now, now that it is on the map. With Instagram, there are no longer any best kept secret magical places. But I’ll bet it’s still pretty magic to people who have never been there before, who are freshly discovering it. And after all, it’s the people who play the largest part in making any place magical, and McCarthy is still filled with amazing, kind, beautiful people, people who keep the magic alive.

Ghost Town at the End of the Rainbow — McCarthy is a magical place.

Thanks to Ann-Christine of Leya for this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge, Magical.

April 7, 2023

It’s Tricky

It’s tricky. Sometimes you can see them and sometimes you can’t. But once you do, you can’t unsee them. I’m talking faces. Faces and other features, mimicked in rock outcroppings or trees.

It's tricky in Olympic National Park — Can you see a fish face in these rocks?

I’m on the road this week. Since I am visiting Face Rock State Scenic Viewpoint in Bandon, Oregon today, I thought it might be fun to share a few of my images with “spirit people’ in them with you.

Face Rock even has a Native American legend attached to it, so a lot of people have given this sea stack human attributes over the ages. Even so, I had a real hard time seeing the face at first. It’s a nasty, stormy day with gray, flat light that doesn’t bring out the shadows that usually make this rock so distinctive. If you are also having trouble seeing a resemblance to a face, too, the profile is on the right side and she’s looking up towards the sky.

It's tricky to see the face at Face Rock natural Scenic Viewpoint. — This is Face Rock. If you can’t see the face, it’s a profile on the right, looking up at the sky.

Sometimes these faces are very well known. The Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia, New Hampshire was even a state symbol, printed on the license plates, until erosion did it in about 20 years ago.

That’s the thing about these features. Like the humans they resemble, they are ephemeral, although their life spans are generally much longer than ours!

It's tricky. — I saw this one very clearly when I shot it, but it didn’t translate so well. If you can’t see the face, here’s a hint – the black spot is an eye and the sawed off branch is a medallion on his headdress. That’s how I first saw it, though in this picture it looks like the sawed-off branch could be his eye, too.

Occasionally, I take a photo and find the “spirit face” in it after I process the image, having never noticed it when I took the original photograph. Has that ever happened to you? My feature photo is one like that. If you can’t see the face, it’s in the lower middle of the image and looks like a gremlin.

I spent a winter in Hawaii many, many years ago, back in my film photography days. I found spirit faces everywhere in those images when I had them developed! By secret waterfalls, in sacred caves…..it was spooky! There’s more going on out there in the world than our mere human senses will ever fully discern or understand. (Twilight Zone theme)

It's tricky in Redwoods National Park. — Fiona’s (Shrek) legs

I find this last image quite remarkable. I hope it doesn’t offend any of you. The tree grew like this naturally, a mother Madrone in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. I have not changed it in any way. This tree could make you believe in the old Greek myths where young girls pursued by lecherous gods were transformed into nymphs and dryads by jealous goddesses.

It's tricky in the Cathedral Hills. — A dryad turned into a tree

I hope you have fun with the resemblances in my post this week. Thank you, Donna of Wind Kisses, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, “It’s Tricky.”

March 17, 2023

Nature Photography — My Road Most Traveled

I’m a nature photographer. It’s what I do. I go wild for my photography.

Yellowstone National Park — I go wild for photography!

John of Journeys With Johnbo chose this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, “The Road Most Traveled”. He asks us to showcase whatever style of photography is our go-to, our favorite, our road most traveled.

I don’t think I can define a particular style as my go-to, but I can definitely define a genre. I do nature photography – to the almost total exclusion of any other kind of photography.

Nature photography in Denali National Park. — Nature photography is my genre.

I guess that makes me a bit of a one-dimensional character. Especially since being wild is almost a prerequisite for a photo of mine. Domestic flowers don’t really interest me. I have plenty of opportunities to do pet photography, being a petsitter and all, but I seldom make pictures of my charges. I also have the opportunity to stay in some lovely homes while petsitting. But I rarely take photos of these houses. There are very few farm or country landscapes in my files, and never a cityscape. Like I said, pretty one-dimensional.

Point Lobos State Park, CA — Point Lobos, California

It’s not that I don’t appreciate other types of photography. Most folks have broader interests than mine. Architecture, travel, food, portraits, street photography – I admire what other people are doing in those genres. I enjoy seeing these things through their eyes. I just don’t feel inspired to go there myself.

But if it’s wild – then my interest is limitless. Desert, mountains, seashore, I love them all. Grand vistas to teeny tiny details. Animals, plants, water, rock – I can’t get enough of them. Macro to wide-angle to zooming in, black and white, color and monochrome – all tools and techniques that help me to express my greatest love, the natural world.

Nature photography in Anza Borrego State Park, CA — Plants, animals, waters, mountains – I love them all.

There is one genre of photography that I rather regret not doing my whole life, and that’s people photography, taking pictures of friends and loved ones. I’ve photographed a few friends’ weddings, and taken pictures at 4th of July parades and a few musical events, but that’s it. I have very few photos of friends and family just enjoying life.

Coachwhip Canyon, Anza Borrego State Park — I love it when viewers can visually or mentally “walk into” one of my images.

I do understand why I don’t have many people pictures. I only take people pictures at events where my role is one of an observer more than a participant. When I’m with friends and family, I want to be totally present. Those moments are precious to me. I want to be a participant, not an observer. For me, taking pictures at that time would remove me from living in the joy of the present moment. I would be concentrating on taking a good picture instead. Weird, I know.

Moose in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Have you ever seen a big moose hide behind a skinny little tree? I caught this one in the act – in my front yard!

I’m certainly glad others don’t feel that way. I am eternally grateful to the friends and family who do document those moments. You know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The older I get the more precious those people pictures are.

Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park, CA — Nature photography is my way of telling these beings,
“I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.”

As I ponder the role photography plays in my life, I realize it’s a tool to further what seems to be my mission in life, my vocation and my avocation. In my photography, my writing, and my work as a ranger, I seem to be pursuing the same goals – turning people on to what makes a place or a subject special and unique, and encouraging others to be kind to our Mother the Earth. It’s what I do.

Matanuska Peak — Nature photography is one way I turn people on to what makes a place special and unique.

I attempt to capture a scene or a subject in such a way that a viewer can visually and mentally walk into that place themselves, to feel like they could be there even if they’ve never seen it in person. When I know I’ve done that, I feel successful as a photographer.

Nature photography is a meditation for me. It’s how I give praise to Creation. I acknowledge the other beings I share this planet with, both animate and inanimate, by practicing the art of seeing. Focusing my total concentration on a subject or a scene is a way of saying to those beings, “I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.” I try to capture just a little of the essence of my subject. What makes that being or that landscape essential.

Redwoods National Park — Trying to capture the essence of my subject – rain forest sparkle party!

If others can discover just a little of that essence through my nature photography, then hopefully they too will acknowledge that that thing or that place is unique and essential. Perhaps they will feel inspired to care for it and keep it safe.

Monterey Bay nature photography — Hopefully my images bring a smile to your face!

If my images occasionally fill my viewers with awe for the wonders of the natural world, that makes me proud of a job well done. Or maybe my nature photography will just bring a smile to their faces or a warm feeling in their hearts. That’s a worthy goal, too.

Trillium, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park — I do love making wildflower images!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings on the art of nature photography. But I hope you enjoy my images of Nature even more.

Emulating Ansel Adams – Headwaters of the Susitna River, with Mounts Deborah and Hayes

December 22, 2022

Below the 49th Parallel – My Favorites

Well, I couldn’t do it. This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is Last Chance, when we’re invited to show off some of our favorite 2022 images that have not been published in a post yet this year. Since I took such a long hiatus from my blog this year, I have plenty! Too many, in fact. I can’t narrow my unpublished favorites down to one post.

Harriman State Park, OR — Oregon beach sunset

I’ve been trying, but I have lots of sweet images I’d love to share. Because I have too many, and since the Lens-Artists are taking a week off for the holidays and won’t be putting out a prompt next week, I’ve decided to divide my favorites into 2 parts. This week will be my favorites from below the 49th parallel, and next week will be my Northland favorites.

Redwood National Park — Tallest trees in the world

Last Winter’s Travels

One suggestion was to include images that would probably never be included in one of our typical posts. I pet sit in the winter but I very, very seldom include photos of my charges in my posts. Here is a favorite shot of a kitty I took care of last January.

Anacortes, WA — This kitty used to chew holes in my clothes!

I spent the month of February on a housesit in Pacific Grove, California. I envisioned this shot and was so excited, especially in post-processing when I realized I’d captured exactly what I’d envisioned!

I love visiting the redwood forest, and I love capturing abstracts. This is my favorite abstract shot for 2022. Charred bark from a previous fire and living green moss and lichens contributed to hues as bright as a peacock’s tail when looked at closely in this image.

Last Chance Photo Challenge — Rainbow Redwood

Check out this cool tree. It’s in Olympic National Park’s coastal forest, and with a burly head, fungus features, and a crown of fern leaves, it’s a people tree! I stop by and say Hello! and give it a hug every time I pass that way.

(Yawn) Another sublime Olympic sunset… The Feature is one, too. I captured this image on Rialto Beach. I love the dreamy feel of this image. The Feature shot is from First Beach. I had so many great shots from First Beach it was hard to pick just one.

This Winter’s Travels

My final image from Olympic is fall colors, maples along the Sol Duc Hot Springs Road. Olympic had by far the best fall colors I found in Washington this year.

Now I’m on Orcas Island, and I have especially enjoyed the waterfalls here. This one is called Rustic Falls.

For my final image, while hiking a local trail I saw this Big Leaf Maple leaf standing, still attached, on a tree branch – perfectly upright and all by itself, beautifully backlit. It’s getting a bit ragged, but mostly green, even though it’s December. It hasn’t let go, just keeps hanging on. This is a great inspiration for those times when I’m feeling a little raggedy! I underexposed the background because it was a bit busy and distracting. Doing this helped me to capture the way this leaf looked to me and made me feel.

Hope you, too, are still hanging in there and I wish you all a Happy Holiday season!

November 30, 2022

My Favorite Places

This week I’d like to share with you all some of my favorite places, ones I will miss this winter as I practice The Middle Way on Orcas Island. This week’s Lens-Artist’s Photo Challenge is Home Sweet Home. Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles asks us, ” If a foreigner were to spend a week or a month traveling your home country with you, where would you take them? What sights would you tell them to be sure to see? Where have you found some of your own favorite images? What is it you truly love about where you live, or places you’ve seen in your home country? ”

Southern Colorado — First snow in the Colorado mountains

Well, they would need at LEAST a month for all MY favorite places. Although I grew up in Colorado and now live in Alaska, I feel at home throughout the West. I’ll start with Colorado. I was raised in Colorado, and lived there for many, many years after I went out on my own. It’s probably where I’ll end up when I get too old to live deep in the wilderness in Alaska. My family is there. Colorado is always close to my heart.

Although I’m at home throughout the West, I do have a few favorite places that I try to visit whenever I have the chance. One is the Colorado Plateau. This region covers big chunks of 4 different states: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. I can’t narrow my favorite down to just one or two places in this area, it’s all so amazing. My advice to a foreign visitor might be to check out a few places that are not as well-known as iconic parks like Arches and Zion. Although I love them, too, they ARE getting loved to death and it might be good to try to spread that impact out a little. Lesser-known places such as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Petrified Forest National Park contain wonders, too.

Another favorite place is Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. This is the best place I’ve ever been for birds. It is the winter home for vast flocks of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes. Over 340 different species of birds live there. It is an incredible place to observe wildlife.

Sandhill Cranes — Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

I spent 8 winters working as a ranger in Death Valley National Park. It is another desert that has captured my heart. The great thing about Death Valley is that because the altitude on the valley floor is so low (the lowest elevation in North America), the nights are seldom cold, even during the deepest darkest months of winter. Makes for great camping, and the rattlesnakes sleep in the winter! It’s an incredibly diverse park, with elevations ranging from below sea level to over 11,000 feet.

I did a little playing with LightRoom on this image. It was a daytime image and the background of bare dirt desert ground was a bit meh so I darkened it until it resembled the night sky, and tried to give a nighttime feel to the dunes, too. Since Death Valley is famed as a night sky park, and since one of my favorite things to do is to walk through the sand dunes under the full moon, I wanted to capture the feel of that experience in this image.

Mesquite Sand Dunes — I love to hike the sand dunes in the moonlight.

And then there’s the bloom. If there is rain in the desert, and if it is timed right, the wildflowers will rock your world. If it seems like it might be a good year for the flowers, I try to make a circuit that starts near the Mexican border in Anza-Borrego State Park, moving through Joshua Tree and Mojave National Preserve until I end up in Death Valley.

Anza-Borrego State Park — Love those desert wildflowers!

Further west on the California coast you will find another great wildlife phenomenon, the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon. Although you can find a few seals there at any time of year, December through February are the best months. Thousands of seals converge on the beaches, with the big strange-looking bulls battling it out for the right to own a piece of the beach, and all the females on it. The cows are birthing and raising their babies then, too. It’s an extraordinary spot to witness wildlife drama, so close you don’t even need binoculars to see it.

Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery — Sex on the Beach

From the campground at San Simeon I can walk to the beach and see some fantastic bird action on the sea stack that looms just offshore there. It’s an awesome place to catch the sunset.

Farther north along the California coast is Mendocino County. It’s my favorite part of the California Coast. I think the scenery is even more dramatic than Big Sur, and without the crowds. It’s got big trees, too.

Greenwood Beach — The beaches in Mendo are wild and uncrowded.

Speaking of big trees, I’ve really fallen in love with the tallest trees in the world, the redwoods, over the last few years.

Sometimes I go straight up the coast into Oregon. Other times I head for the Siskiyou country near Grants Pass and Williams. The trees there are incredibly graceful and beautiful and it’s my last chance to see wildflowers as I head north.

Pacifica — Oregon has some incredible trees!

But no matter which way I go, I try to hit the coast at Bandon. It is so much fun to shoot the sea stacks there!

The Olympic Peninsula is my next favorite place. The old-growth forests redefine green and the wild beaches are phenomenal.

And then there’s Alaska. It’s where my heart is, my community, my job, my life. My first love in Alaska was Denali National Park and I try to go there whenever I get a chance.

But home is McCarthy, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I truly believe it’s the most spectacular place in North America. Case in point – check out my daily commute! And the feature image was taken while I was standing on my front porch! It doesn’t get much better than this.

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my favorite places. As Jim Morrison of the Doors said, the West is the best!

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!

Tag: redwoods

Magical Places

Mountains

Water

Trees

Tidepools

Desert

Home

Like this:

It’s Tricky

Like this:

Nature Photography — My Road Most Traveled

Like this:

Below the 49th Parallel – My Favorites

Last Winter’s Travels

This Winter’s Travels

Like this:

My Favorite Places

Like this:

(Wishing For) The Colors of April

Like this:

Mountains

Water

Trees

Tidepools

Desert

Home

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Last Winter’s Travels

This Winter’s Travels

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: