On subsequent journeys, Jim White would continue several miles underground and descend vertically more than 700 feet below the surface. He spent the next several years exploring the cave system, naming iconic landmarks like the Big Room, King’s Palace, and Devil’s Spring. For a long time, his claims of a “buried fairyland” were dismissed as…
Having spent eight years working at Wisconsin’s Cave of the Mounds during my younger years, visiting Carlsbad Caverns National Park was both an extraordinary underground adventure and a tough photographic challenge. Capturing photos in caves like Carlsbad Caverns isn’t easy because the artificial lighting is kept minimal to protect the fragile ecosystem. Even the best…
For Jim White, who discovered the cave in 1898 at age 16 while herding cattle in the Chihuahuan Desert, recognition finally arrived in the early 1920s when photographer Ray V. Davis took its first interior photographs. The photos sparked a National Geographic expedition led by Dr. Willis T. Lee, which confirmed the cave’s immense scale….
Unable to reach the floor in the first attempt of entering his new discovery, 16-year-old Jim White would return later with homemade wire, a wood ladder and a kerosene lantern. So, in 1898, alone, Jim descended down the cliff roughly 60 feet to the first landing inside the cave, and began exploring the pitch-black tunnels….
16-year-old Jim White, riding to inspect the source of smoke he observed on a ridge in the Chihuahuan Desert in 1898, soon realize the “smoke” he had seen from a distance was millions of bats, primarily Brazilian free-tailed bats, spiraling out of a massive hole in the ground… ≡Canon R5/RF24-240 24mm f/18 1/320sec iso-2500
In 1898, 16-year-old Jim White was rounding up cattle in the Chihuahuan Desert in present day New Mexico, when up on a ridge he saw a massive plume of dark “smoke.” Fearing wildfire, Jim made his way up the ridge to inspect the source of the smoke… ≡Canon R5/RF24-240 83mm f/6.3 1/200sec iso-125
When you think of coastal southwest Florida, many picture the ocean and mangrove swamps. But the primary story of the Everglades is fresh water, and as you transition from salt water to fresh water, you will see a delicate blending of ecosystems. Here, the roots of a cypress with hanging epiphytic bromeliads above, are surrounded…
One of the most visited locations in America and here one of the famous tour boats (this one from the Canadian side) enters the mist of Horseshoe Falls. Yes, you will get wet! (Niagara Falls, New York and Ontario) ≡Canon R5/RF24-240 240mm f/6.3 1/1000sec iso-400
Don’t be fooled… you may need to zoom in to glimpse the path of sightseers which will give you a little perspective of the massive size of the rock formation Double Arch – Arches National Park. To me it seems like the red rock is like playdough and someone has pressed it together, then stretched,…
The 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail where it traverses the North Carolina and Tennessee state line at Newfound Gap – Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On this day I was just standing at the edge of a parking lot. But it sure was tempting to close the car and begin the hike. Only 1,972 miles to Katahdin,…