Category: Geology

Canyon Color

Zion National Park in Southern Utah is pretty darn beautiful. The towering rock walls remind me of a red Yosemite. The first time I visited the park in January 2010, ice and snow blanketed the ground and many of the hikes were inaccessible or dangerous to do. But one of the most iconic hikes in […]

Keyhole

Taken at Pfieffer Beach in Big Sur, California on December 9th, 2011. In the winter there is a very interesting photographic phenomenon that occurs in California. At Pfieffer Beach in Big Sur, the setting sun shines at just the right angle to shine through the keyhole of a mighty arch to illuminate the sea spray […]

Tuolumne Tundra

Taken in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park on November 27th, 2011 Just when I thought Tioga Pass was closed for the season, a magical thing happened: some late season warm weather melted the ice from the road and highway 120 reopened. How fortunate then that I was visiting my family a mere 1.5 hours from […]

Autumn Narrows

Taken in The Narrows, Zion National Park on November 16th, 2011 Zion National Park in Southern Utah is pretty darn beautiful. The towering rock walls remind me of a red Yosemite. The first time I visited the park in January 2010, ice and snow blanketed the ground and many of the hikes were inaccessible or […]

Dune Avalanche

Taken in the Mesquite Sand Dunes in Death Valley on November 10th, 2011 Walking along the sharp ridge line of a dune in the Mesquite Sand dunes in the desert of Death Valley I noticed these fascinating chutes formed by small avalanches of sand. I loved the textures and shapes.

Yosemite Thunder

Taken at Olmsted Point in Yosemite National Park on September 12, 2011 I was in Yosemite to help my mom celebrate her 61st birthday by hiking to the top of Half Dome. Because of the new permit system, the date of your hike is not changeable. So we started to worry a bit when the […]

Picture Peak

Taken at Moonlight Lake in the Sabrina Basin, Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, on August 22nd 2011 “The mosquitoes will eat you alive.” 2011 had been an extremely snowy year in the Sierra and the massive snowpack was keeping the meadows marshy and bugs buggy a full month later than usual. As I chugged my way […]

Shooting Stars by Moonlight

Taken at Moonlight Lake in the Sabrina Basin, Eastern Sierra, California on August 22nd, 2011 Forget coffee, forget Redbull. Nothing gets me zipping along first thing in the morning like some high Sierra backpacking. On my last morning of a trip to the wondrous Sabrina Basin near Bishop, California I rolled out of my tent […]

Racing Stripes

Taken in Zebra Canyon near the town of Escalante, Utah, on May 31st, 2011 The slot canyons of southern Utah come in a wide variety of shapes, colors, and textures. It is amazing how each canyon can be so different from the next, despite being separated by fairly small distances. While on a camping trip […]

Hoodoo Maze

Taken at Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park on May 31st, 2011 Bryce Canyon is a beautiful and surreal place: 18 miles of orange hoodoo sentinels standing watch over the plateau below. And perhaps nowhere provides a better view of the park’s fascinating geology than Inspiration Point, where you can look out into the Bryce […]

Coyote Falls, Coyote Gulch

Read The Story Buy A Print The Story Behind This Photograph: Taken in Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on May 28th, 2011 Call me impulsive, but sometimes I plan trips based only on a single photo of a place. The first time I did this I visited L’ile de la Reunion in the middle […]

Temple of the Sun

Taken in Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef National Park on May 27th, 2011 An absolute undiscovered gem of a park, Captiol Reef in central Utah houses some of the most breathtaking and unique scenery of the Waterpocket Fold, a massive wrinkle in the Earth’s surface. Towering cathedrals, slot canyons, never-ending vistas, volcanic remnants: this park has […]