Gallery: Grouse Mountain

Gallery (65 images): Grouse Mountain

The first day with my cousin and his wife was spent up on Grouse Mountain. The weather was overcast and grey when we first got there, and even the grizzlies seemed dejected. It was still overcast for the lumberjack show but for the "Birds in Motion" raptor show, the skies started to clear. The raptors were definitely the highlight of the day...

Gallery: Burnaby Mtn, Belcarra Park and Pitt Lake...

Gallery (25 images): Burnaby Mtn, Belcarra Park & Pitt Lake

Another few days of sightseeing with my cousin and his wife. First off, some views down onto Vancouver and up Indian Arm from Burnaby Mtn, then at Belcarra Park for sunset. After seeing some of my photos near Pitt Lake, the next day my cousin decided that he'd also like to go there and thankfully, the weather cooperated with some fairly dramatic skies too.

Gallery: Victoria, BC

Gallery (60 images): Victoria, BC

I've taken some time off from working on my previous trip images since my cousin Marco and his wife had come for a visit from Germany. Our main excursion, while they were visiting Vancouver, was to take the ferry over to Victoria and spend the day sightseeing. The gallery above contains some of my images from that outing...

Gallery: Death Valley, CA - Days 1 & 2...

Gallery (60 images): Death Valley, CA - Days 1 & 2

This gallery contains images from my first two days at Death Valley National Park. After my drive up from Joshua Tree National Park, I was amazed at how few people were camping at Furnace Creek, despite the fact that it was the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. Since it was already fairly hot and already considered the off-season in Death Valley, the campground had relatively few people and a big part of it was already closed of entirely. After finding a reasonably shaded spot for the tent, I set up camp and then headed over to Zabriskie Point and photographed sunset there.

On the second day, I drove the Titus Canyon Road in from Nevada, stopping the photograph the ghost town of Leadfield and many other scenic spots along the way. Later that evening I spent time on the sand dunes at Stovepipe Wells, the Mesquite Dunes, where I thankfully managed to hike out to an area devoid of human footprints. There was some amazing light and after the skies started looking ominous, I decided to make time back to the vehicle. Indeed, when I got back to the car, it was very windy and there was a huge wall of sand and dust headed my way! I started doing a time-lapse of the approaching sand but that was cut short when it hit fairly quickly. The winds then were so strong, that it send my tripod skittering and skidding across the road! Luckily I had just taken my camera off and I chased it down...

I drove back out of the sandstorm at low speeds with my hazards flashing, which is what other cars were doing as well and once I cleared the cloud of sand, I booted it back to my campsite to the south at Furnace Creek. Luckily I beat the sandstorm there by about 10 minutes and managed to get all my vents inside zipped shut to keep out the blowing sand and dust. Unfortunately it was a hot and muggy night with all the vents shut and the temperature in the tent never dropped below 35º C, at least not until about 2:00am when the storm abated and I could open up some of the vents again. Still, it really didn't cool off much that night, maybe a few degrees lower only. With all the fiercely blowing sand and dust, thunder, lightning and some intervals of pelting rain too, my tent was a blotchy, muddy mess the next morning.

Link: All galleries from this trip...

Gallery: Death Valley, CA - Day 3...

Gallery (60 images): Death Valley, CA - Day 3...

On day three in Death Valley, I visited numerous diverse locations. On the way to Aguereberry Point, I stopped off at the Eureka Mine ruins and also at the Aguereberry Camp ghost "town", although with only a few buildings, I suppose it is too small to really be called a town. What surprised me, is that even though the buildings are visible from the main road leading to Aguereberry Point, and it is only a short drive on a dirt road and 2 minute walk from the parking area, there is actually very little graffiti. One building had one room with its walls filled with graffiti (photo 18 in the gallery), but that is pretty much it. The old house pictured above, actually has virtually none at all, neither on the inside nor the outside. This is really a nice change since I much prefer photographing "pristine" ruins that have not been defaced in more recent times with spray-paint and graffiti!

After photographing the ruins, I headed up to Aguereberry Point and was rewarded with some wonderful cloud shadows and quite clear vistas. The wide panorama in the gallery was a stitch of four shots. Strangely enough, despite the fact that I was up there during the Memorial Day weekend, there was nobody else at the viewpoint! In fact overall, Death Valley was quiet on what I presumed would be a very busy weekend where tourists generally flock to the national parks. I suppose it was late enough in the year already that the heat was keeping people away. Indeed, despite the big thunderstorm the night before with rain and high winds, the nighttime temperatures in Furnace Creek didn't drop below about 35º Celsius.

After enjoying the views at Aguereberry Point, I headed over to the mill ruins at the ghost town of Skidoo (more great clouds there) and then finished off the day at the Stovepipe Wells sand dunes. It seemingly was a very busy day for tourists on the dunes though, since there were tracks and footprints everywhere, despite the fact that previous night's storm had likely erased all the tracks on the dunes from before. The ridges along the highest dunes were flattened down from all the people walking there, which you can easily see in some of the photos...

Link: All galleries from this trip...

Gallery: Mono Lake, CA

Gallery (40 images): Mono Lake, CA

Originally I was scheduled to head down to Oregon for a week, but due to the lingering smoke and haze from the many fires burning in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, I decided to stay home and work on images from some previous trips. So, continuing on with the "reverse" postings from my May road-trip to southern California...

After camping for three days in the sweltering heat of Furnace Creek in Death Valley, I headed north to photograph the ghost town of Bodie. On the way north, I decided to stay at a hotel in Lee Vining that evening, and this not only gave me an opportunity to visit Mono Lake's South Tufa area, but also to have a much needed shower!

Link: All galleries from this trip...