Landscapes

The Distant Rockies

One of the places I have certainly missed exploring over the last year has been the Canadian Rockies. Spread across the border between Alberta and British Columbia, two mountainous provinces of Canada, these rocky mountain ranges seem even more impressive than their cousins south of the border. Towering snow-capped peaks rise high above glaciated valleys, where a low treeline provides easy accessibility to stellar views. The expansive nature of its untouched wilderness more than makes up for the limited road access and short hiking season, and unexplored regions still await the determined outdoor hiker.

Spread across this extensive wilderness area are five spectacular National Parks: Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho and Waterton Lakes, along with countless provincial parks, each holding their own unique attraction. It is certainly daunting to try and cover these gems of the Canadian Parks system in one single trip, and I would recommend sticking to one or two parks each visit, unless you have an entire summer to travel around.

Here is one alpine scene from Spray Lakes Provincial Park near the town of Canmore in Alberta. Far less crowded than its neighbor Jasper National Park, it is just as beautiful and definitely worth a visit.

Spray Lakes Provincial Park
AB Canada

Pano over the Canyon

Pano over the Canyon.jpg

The dry desertscape of Utah seem a far cry from the vibrant rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, but present a landscape with a refreshing palette of colors. Vast swathes of the Colorado and Green River basin near Moab expose sandstone buried from the Jurassic period and rich in iron oxides, exhibiting this characteristic red color. And in the amber hues and slanted rays of sunrise and sunset, one can really experience the incredible and diverse features of this landscape, from towering mesas silhouetted in sunlight to tiered gorges that evolve from tiny gullies to a vast rocky canyon.

I tried to capture the essence of this landscape at a sunset vista from an overlook in Canyonland's Island in the Sky district. From this viewpoint, once can spy the fingers carved into the undulating sandstone by the seasonal tributaries of the Green River, and its confluence with the mighty Colorado further south. The west-facing walls catch the last light of the day, with deep shadows highlighting the stark differences in terrain. This part of Canyonlands is replete with plenty of these viewpoints, offering a glimpse into the diverse landscape and into the storeyed geological history of the North American continent.

Canyonlands National Park
UT USA

The Salton Sunrise

At 4 in the morning, I was still dazed in my hotel bed, wondering where I ought to be for sunrise at Joshua Tree National Park. As I gathered my senses, I started scouting the nearby locations, completely unaware of the conditions the sky would present. As I headed to the park, I kept peering into the horizon, hoping for a clue of where I ought to be to capture the magic of sunrise. In the end, I headed up to a viewpoint where I got a glimpse of the distant Salton Sea, one of the largest inland seas of the continent.

As the sky slowly transformed into the colors of dawn, the edges of the high clouds changed to a deep shade of pink, which reflected faintly on the vast surface of the sea. Surrounding this sea was the vast inland desert of California and Arizona, dominated by the distant blue mountains that were still in shadows early in the morning. I waited a bit, hoping for this vast landscape to light up, but before that could come to fruition, the sun promptly disappeared behind a large bank of clouds, dashing any hopes of a bright sunrise. Nevertheless, I tried to capture the vastness in scale of this unique vista of Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park
CA USA

Leave No Trace

Thw Wonder Lake.jpg

As the snow melts away from the higher elevations of the Cascades, it leaves behind glaciated mountains enclosing valleys filled with glistening lakes and delicate alpine meadows. Views like these await visitors who summit the high peaks and ridges, where, above the treeline, the grand montane vistas open up. Such accessible areas are few and far in-between, and the high visitation to these areas during the short hiking season has a heavy toll on the delicate flora and fauna that survive in the higher elevations of the Cascades.

So when you are planning your next trip into the high alpine terrain of the Cascades, make sure you follow the seven principles of Leave No Trace:

  1. Plan Ahead and Prepare

  2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces, and concentrate use on existing trails and campsites

  3. Dispose of waste properly, and pack it in, and pack it out. And if possible, leave the place cleaner than when you arrived there.

  4. Leave what you find, or as they say: take only pictures and leave only footprints

  5. Minimize campfire impacts - create fires only where permitted

  6. Respect wildlife

  7. Be considerate of other visitors.

Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forest
WA USA

Silhouetted by Sunlight

The spines of a fraser fir stands along the ridgeline of one of Clingmans dome, silhouetted by the hazy morning light. Once a large grove of firs atop the dome, they were decimated by the balsam woolly beetle with efforts to repopulate ending in failure, and led to a drastic change in the montane ecosystem of the dome. Other vegetation still survives, with lower slopes dominated by deciduous trees that shed color every fall, and whose change of color attracts tourists from all over.

Driving up from the lower valleys where the colors had just started to change, to the upper reaches where most trees were reduced to their skeletons, one can experience a wide range of biodiversity exhibited by the Appalachians. The landscape around continues to change, primarily by the human pressure from population centers and industries on either side of the divide. But the higher you get, the less visible those changes are.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park
NC USA

Black and White Sands

A late afternoon dust-storm picks up fine sand from the dunes of White Sands National Park. This National Park, tucked within two mountain ranges of New Mexico, hosts the largest sand dunes made of gypsum sand that looks like snow, but flows like salt. Finer than regular sand, frequent windstorms easily pick up the pearl white dunes, erasing footprints of days past, leaving being sharp ripples that move every single day.

Due to the constantly shifting dunes, there are no fixed trails here, except for a series of markers for directional guidance. And even though they are small, it is easy to wander and get lost amidst the vast expanse of the dunes. But that shouldn't deter you from making a visit to this unique park in the desert southwest.

White Sands National Park
NM USA

Summer in the Cascades

Who is excited for the summer?

With the ultra-warm temperatures last week, it almost felt like summer in the Pacific Northwest. And even though mountainscapes like this would be inaccessible for quite a few more months, I feel like I am ready for more adventures in the wilderness areas of Washington.

This specific image was taken a few summers ago, right at the cusp of fall where smoke from nearby fires lent a hazy atmosphere on a crisp summer morning. The open terrain above the treeline, dotted with glistening lakes and panoramic vistas of the North cascades, is really a wonderland that I hope will be incorporated into the National Park System.

Mt Baker Snoqualmie National Forest
WA USA

Monkey Face

At first glance, I was struggling to see why Monkey Face had its name. This pillar of rock, detached from the rest of the crags on the steep western slopes of Smith Rock, didn't resemble anything like a monkey. I could see why it would be an interesting challenge for climbers, evidenced by the gasps and squeals of the rock scalers at that moment - it is certainly a unique rock to climb, but there were more challenging cliff faces all over the park to test the mettle of any climber.

I kept pondering over this as I tried to compose the grand landscape of Smith Rock framed by the lenticular clouds over the distant volcanoes, and the sinuous curves of the Crooked river. It wasn't until I wandered down from the lookout and got a different perspective of the rock did I realize why it had such a name. From this new angle, the shape of a monkey's face materialized into view, a sharp silhouette formed by the setting sun.

Just as in photography, life often requires a change in perspective to visualize something different even within same old surroundings: a new routine to start your day, a new way to measure and track your goals, or a new way to value the things that matter to you. With a curiosity to indulge in new adventures, and the willingness to accept new changes, these changes in perspective enable you to experience a new life.

Smith Rock State Park
OR USA

Waiting for a Frozen Sun

I left the hotel with the mercury exactly at 0C/32F. And as I drove up to the rim of Crater lake on that cold dawn, I saw the needle dropping further and further, finally settling at -9C/16F. I was hoping it wouldn't get any colder as I wasn't even prepared for subzero temperatures.

But it did. As I stepped out into the biting cold, I felt a freezing wind gush from the depths of the lake up the snow-covered slopes onto the icy pavement. Even with all my layers on, I was chilled to the bone. My fingers froze in an instant, despite two layers of gloves. And for this pain, all I got to see was a thick layer of fog streaming over the entire surface of the lake, reducing visibility to mere feet.

And so I waited, hoping for the rising sun to push the fog away and reveal a glorious sunrise. But it wasn't to be. Instead, the fog lifted off a small portion of the lake, revealing a patch of bright light on an otherwise gloomy grey vista.

Some days, you are lucky, and some days you aren't. Today wasn't one of those, but unless you try, you never know.

Crater Lake National Park
OR USA

Lost in Badlands

I never really grasped the size and the sense of scale of the country while flying from coast to coast. It was during my two road trips across the nation that I really learnt to appreciate the vastness and dramatic diversity of the nation. From driving through the monotonous undulating cornfields of the Midwest to traversing the glacier-capped Rocky mountains, the spine of the country, each day presented unique stories and uncovered hidden gems.

Badlands National Park was one such gem. I really hadn't paid much attention to this park tucked along a long remote stretch of an interstate, until I actually drove past it. Curiosity soon got the better of me, and I snuck into the park to better appreciate this parks' unappreciated wonders. This one image captures the essence of it: strata of rock showing vast diversity in colors and patterns that I have not really seen anywhere else.

Badlands National Park
SD USA