The third park in my journey through the 59 (then) National Parks was the Redwood National Park. I had planned it as a short detour on my way to the fourth one (more about it on my next post), hoping to see the tall coastal redwoods that this region was so famous for. And while I did get to admire the grandeur of the misty forests with towering trees, it is hard to get a perspective of size of the Coastal Redwoods unlike the Giant Sequoias further inland. I remember bad weather and lack of planning marring further exploration of this park, and I had tabled this place in my memory for a future visit.
Despite being so close and accessible, I only had the opportunity to visit this amazing park once after that. I used the opportunity to admire the rugged and rocky coastline, and hike amidst the giant redwood forests, and feeling like an eternal dwarf in unspoilt nature. I wish I could go back and spend more time in this beautiful slice of nature that is often left out of the tourist maps, and explore the unexplored.
Here is my take of the rocky shore one foggy evening, where I exaggerated the color with the help of the Singh Ray Blue and Gold Polarizer.
Redwood National Park
CA USA
Sunset in Blue and Gold
During the dark and dreary winters in the PNW, I often reminisce my time living in California. There were many things I complained about my past life there: the heavy traffic, the car culture, the high cost of living and much more. But being able to get to the blissful Pacific coast in under an hour and capture the vestiges of a summer sunset after a hard day of work more than made up for the hardship of living there.
To make a jaunt to the coast worthwhile, I first scour the webcams pointing to the west to watch the cloud patterns and the inversion layer over the ocean. And once in a while, the conditions become favorable, as it was in this case where I drove to a cliff overlooking the calm waters of the Pacific
Davenport
CA USA
A Golden Retreat
High in the Sierras, there exists mythical places where the skies are red and the water is a turquoise blue, where rugged granite behemoths were carved into graceful shapes, where glistening lakes and gurgling streams wind their way down mountains, valleys and canyons. Some of these mythical places are hard to reach, while others, including this one, are just a day's hike away from civilization.
Ansel Adams Wilderness
CA USA
The Unspoilt Coast
The rugged Pacific coast of the Olympic National Park is an unique jewel of that National Park. Here, once gets to see rocky sea-stacks topped by conifers stand just a few hundred feet from flat sandy beaches which disappear into the thick temperate rainforest that characterizes this lush and pristine environment.
I am excited to spend a couple of days exploring the nooks and crannies of the rugged coastline in the northwest corner of this National Park. Hope your weekend plans are just as colorful.
Olympic National Park
WA USA
Sunset at Bonsai Rock
Ever since I had first seen images of the Bonsai Rock in Lake Tahoe, I was taken away by the location and the context of where it was: imagine a granite boulder smoothed by eons of water erosion resting on the shore of a azure blue lake surrounded by snow-capped peaks. And then imagine tiny sprigs of life taking root on the nooks and crevices of this tiny boulder. That is the spectacle of Bonsai Rock.
At first glance from the road, it may not have been much, but as I scrambled my way on the rocky shoreline down to the water-level, the profile of the bonsai rock grew even more predominant and striking. While the scene and the setting was perfect, the sky, on the other hand, was just bland. I strapped on a Blue-and-Gold Polarizer to add some unearthly colors to this scene, resulting in this exposure above.
Surreal reflections and colorful sunsets will have to wait another day.
Sand Harbor State Park
NV USA