The city of Tucson is surrounded by a forest of saguaro cacti. On every hillside and throughout the valley, the large, multi-armed plants dominate the field of view. While the two sections of Saguaro National Park—East and West—draw the most attention, we discovered that there are actually many hiking trails from the city into this…
Located along the Bow River and entirely within Banff National Park, the town of Banff is surrounded by the beautiful Canadian Rockies, which draw guests to this recreational hub in both winter and summer. I captured this shot of the icy river and snow-capped mountains while on a walk at the edge of town, trying…
Feeling small and unheard? Guadalupe Mountains National Park, in far West Texas, encompasses 86,416 rugged acres of the Chihuahuan Desert and is home to eight of the ten highest peaks in the state, yet it is a relatively unknown national park. Formed from an ancient marine fossil reef more than 260 million years ago, the…
Life in the desert Southwest is challenging and harsh. Signs of abandoned hopes and dreams are not uncommon. Shelter and water-storage capacity may seem sufficient here, but sometimes impossible conditions force us to move on. Ignore the danger signs at your own peril. (Tularosa, New Mexico) ≡Canon R5/RF24-240 70mm f/6.3 1/1000 sec iso-160
Coming across a hungry grizzly and her two cubs is nothing to mess with, so we kept our distance. Watching them interact as they feasted on the flowers and berries on this hillside in Glacier National Park was priceless. I liked this particular image because the cubs would get lost in the tall foliage and…
Above 11,000′, along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, you will experience high-elevation alpine tundra, where summer only lasts a few weeks and vegetation must quickly garner all the energy needed to survive the long, brutal winter. It’s important to know how delicate this terrain is and how quickly it can be damaged…
A forest of cactus at the Valley View Overlook – Saguaro National Park. This may be a little silly… but the cactus in the middle, the tall one, reminds me of Lumière in Beauty and the Beast. He seems to be welcoming us to his forest. As if saying, “Dinner is served!” More seriously, we…
Sand grains of nearly pure quartz sand, recrystallized and fused together with extreme heat and pressure, formed the metamorphic rock Medicine Peak Quartzite, giving these mountains an appearance of a year-round, snow-white covering. Snowy Mountains – Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. (Centennial, Wyoming) ≡Canon R5/RF24-240 55mm f/13 1/100sec iso-100
Hiking the switchbacks up through hoodoo rock formations on the Navajo Loop Trail – Bryce Canyon National Park. Be sure to take water with you, as it can be hot almost any time of year on this short but steep trail. The elevation gain on the way up this section called “Wall Street” is 515…
Mountain streams often swell when rainy stretches go on for more than a day or two. We happened to hit one of those situations a few years ago at Glacier National Park. Fortunately, our tent held up, and we did not have water inside. The other good news was that it meant we were going…