Crater Lake National Park was just a hop skip and jump from Redwood, relative to the overall distance we were driving. Having arrived at Crater lake with very little driving experience, I remember being afraid of even driving along the curvy rim road that winds around the massive crater. But my fear vanished as soon as I got the first sight of the massive crater.
For a big city kid, seeing a pristine lake as large as this, with a deep blue color quite unlike anything I had seen before, was a life-changing experience. I had never experienced anything of such scale, let alone a volcano whose crater had a 33-mile rim. That, coupled with the stark alpine scenery of the surrounding Cascades, made for an unforgettable first visit.
My second trip to this park was more than 16 years later in less than ideal weather conditions, but it was enough to spark the joy of being in this very unique National Park. This particular image, however, is one of my first attempts at a panorama from my first visit.
Crater Lake National Park
OR USA
A National Park Journey - Redwood National Park
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
A National Park Journey - Kings Canyon National Park
The first National Park I had visited in the country was Sequoia National Park. Being a sister park to Sequoia, Kings Canyon was the obvious choice to visit after Sequoia. After the intimacy with gentle giants in the first park, Kings Canyon was a shift in scale. I gazed with wonder at the towering granite canyon walls where gushing waterfalls flowed into bubbling creeks that meandered amongst grassy meadows laid out along the South Fork of Kings River. I even gained my first hiking chops on one of the many hiking trails that climbed up from the valley.
That vast mountainous landscape would draw me again for many years after that. Since then, I have hiked and backpacked in many different parts of that park that covers a vast swath of the Sierras far away from any civilization. I have been blessed to have been given the opportunity to explore this spectacular part of California, and this wilderness nestled in Kings Canyon holds a special place in my heart.
This image was a night sky from one of the many backpacking trips to Kings Canyon national Park
Kings Canyon National Park
CA USA
A National Park Journey - Sequoia
Many years ago, after I had visited a few National Parks in California, I became enamored by the idea of visiting all the National Parks by 2025 by visiting at least two new National Parks every year. It was an aspirational goal, serving as a motivational force to keep me seeking new adventures and planning new destinations every year. It felt far away, but I slowly kept kept chipping away at this goal, getting closer and closer even as the number of National Parks were expanded. And yet, in a few weeks, I will be visiting my 50th National Park (of the 63 named National Parks today). I never imagined I would reach this milestone this quickly and putting me within earshot of my goal. That said, the next dozen, with a few in Alaska, are anything but easy or accessible.
This gave me a moment to pause and think of the very first National Parks I had visited, of the memories I had created, and of the experiences I had had. The very first one on the list was Sequoia National Park, that I visited with a few colleagues during my first summer job in the country, and that experience was life-changing. Not only was it my first visit to a National Park, it was also my first camping experience. And having grown up a big city kid, seeing nature and wilderness in such a scale was eye opening.
Here is one image that captures the feeling of enormous scale that I felt watching these giants rising high against the foliage of the forest
Sequoia National Park
CA USA
The Monuments
It was not my first rodeo at Monument valley. But I still got the chills looking at these towering buttes and mesas rising above the vast dry desert floor of the Colorado Plateau. And on this particular day, a transient sandstorm created a layer of haze around the shale skirts of the buttes and exaggerated the vast wild West atmosphere exuded by the Valley of the Rocks.
The park is still closed, and that prevented us from getting up close and personal with these monuments. But they still held their beauty from afar.
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
AZ USA
Floral Wonderland
In some years, spring is muted, and in some years, the mountainsides explode in color as wildflowers bloom enmasse, blanketing the sun-drenched slopes of the Cascades. This year, it was the turn for the eastern side of the Cascades to greet visitors with a fresh coat of balsamroot, phlox, lupines and many other varieties of flora. Normally a drab sun-baked brown for the rest of the year, the lush green slopes get carpeted with tiny shrubs and plants from different flowering species competing for space and attention from the pollinators which have a field day. Watching the flowers dance and sway with the cool winds from the Cascades blowing down these slopes is a mesmerizing experience.
What makes it even more special is the ephemeral nature of this phenomenon: blooms like these rarely occur every year, and even if they do, last more than a few weeks before they fade away and are taken over by the dry summer browns. Hence, it is worthwhile to go seek out these special places at the right time, all the while make sure not to trample on these delicate blossoms.
Wenatchee
WA USA
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
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
The Hazy Coast
The long Olympic coastline is characterized by sandy beaches interspersed by rocky headlands replete with sea stacks topped by wind-sheared trees, natural arches that are slowly eroding away, and rocky cliffs withstanding the onslaught of the steady march of the waves. And in the winter, storms in the Pacific create surges of waves that blast the irregular shoreline. As the waves march towards the land, the strong winds catch the waves and spray it far, leading to a haze that is often characterized as the salty atmosphere of the wet olympic coast
I tried to capture its spirit in this scene that is typical of the beautiful coastline of this region.
Olympic National Park
WA USA