This past March we spent a week in Tucson to get some vitamin D sunshine! And it was J’s first trip to the desert, ever! We went on a couple of hikes, went to the amazing Kartchner Caverns, went to a desert botanical garden and bistro, Tohono Chul, and just hung out drinking tea at The Scented Leaf, where I picked up some nice green tea to take home.
Unfortunately, they don’t let you take pictures at Kartchner Caverns except on certain days and then you have to pay a lot of $$ so I don’t have anything to show you from our walk in the caves there but we did go to a great Mexican restaurant for lunch in a town close by. We asked the Cavern staff where to go and the woman said “Lucky for you that I’m a total foodie and you have to go to this hole in the wall place, Mi Casa Restaurant, in Benson. So we went and were not disappointed. It’s literally a Mom and Pop place; she cooks, he waits the tables. The food was great and we were satiated and happy.
We also “lounged” through an evening at Gates Pass to watch the sunset. Again, just perfect. I have lots of great shots from the trip; here’s just some of my favourites. Hope you enjoy. (Hint: click on a photo to see the full size image)
A Perfect DayOverlooking TucsonRiver of SandDesert ValleyDown the Valley on Blackett’s Ridge trailA splash of colourSunset glow on peaks in Gates Pass with full moon.
Since my last post about panoramas, I’ve made several more that I really like. This post I’ll focus (pun intended) 🙂 on ones from my local neighbourhood. I’ve also made it so you can click on each of the images and see them up close and personal in a new window. Without being too conceited, I think you’ll enjoy the extra details you can see in the larger versions! I always do.
First, one I stitched together from 2 photos taken in July from a walk at DeBoughville Slough with J and my sister, in Coquitlam, BC.
Looking NE up the Pitt River at the Golden Ears Mt massif in the background. Golden Ears Mt is centre-left and Blanshard Needle is is the pointy one almost dead centre.
Next, a pano taken in October, from 2 photos taken with my LG5 phone camera on the the Bluffs above Admiralty Point in Belcarra Park, Port Moody, BC.
Looking West down the Burrard Inlet past Vancouver in the distance.
Another October stitch, from 7 photos taken from a hike to the White Rock viewpoint in Coquitlam. If you look at the centre land features in this one, you can see the same hill and towers and point of land you saw in the previous picture. This is up higher and a more expansive view. Vancouver Island way in the distance.
Looking South and West. You can see city of Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond. Also SFU on Burnaby Mt in left mid-ground.
Here’s one I made from a 3 photos one cloudy December morning while walking around the inlet. I’m on the North side shooting South. Another set with the LG5.
Clouds and trees and water
Not perfect but it made Explore on Flickr with almost 6 thousand views and that is saying something!
One from Maple Beach on a January hike to Admiralty point. A stitch of 5 shots. It was a “dreary” day so black and white was the way to go here.
Sculpture at Maple Beach in Belcarra Park, a beach on the way to Admiralty Point.
Here’s one at the Rocky Point piers in February, looking North towards the mountains. 2 LG photos stitched to make this.
Looking North at the Fannin range with Seymour Mt foremost.
Last but not least, 2 panoramas I made a few days ago during a walk around Buntzen Lake. It was cloudy, the lake was perfectly still and I was, as they say, in the right place at the right time. The first one is a composite of 4 shots.
Looking at part of Eagle Ridge from West shore of Buntzen Lake.
This second one is a stitch of 10 photos! That’s right, 10. It took a bit of processing time but was totally worth it. It also made Explore and as of the writing of this post, was about to break 7,000 views! As you might imagine, I’m very proud of this one.
Reflection of the whole of Eagle ridge in Buntzen Lake.
So there you have it, my latest local panorama compositions. Can’t really call them photos because they are always put together from at least 2 and often more, captures. Hope you enjoyed the show.
The view from my windows is ever changing with the season and is often very beautiful. Here’s what it looked like a little while before all the leaves fell off and after an early dash of snow.
looking at the mountainslooking closer at the mountains and shrubberymy front yard Japanese red maple
Isn’t my little part of the world a beautiful place. 8 =)
I finally got to tick off a park that has long been on my bucket list, Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park. We had planned to go earlier in the summer and had paid and reserved our ride up but cancelled at the last minute because of all the smoke from forest fires in the area. Instead we went to Manning Park and had a great 3 day backpack with only a bit of smoky views the first day which cleared up nicely for the rest of the trip.
As it was getting near the end of summer, and we still wanted to go to Cathedral, we decided to head up last week. Smoke reports were pretty low and lodge staff said weather up in the park was great. So off we went on Sunday to go up on the 4PM shuttle figuring smoke wasn’t going to be in the picture. WRONG!
It was interesting just how the smoke behaved. It was coming up from Washington state fires and would come in during the day. Then the winds would die down and we would have perfectly clear skies to star gaze at night. Early mornings would look clear blue skies and then the wind would start to pick up and the smoke would move in.
We had planned 3 nights camping and coming back mid-afternoon on day 4. And that’s what we did, with a little “wrinkle”. We had reserved our ride out for the 3:30 shuttle but due to the smoke, it turned out that the park was told to evacuate everyone on that day. So we all headed down on the 1 PM shuttle, a couple of hours early.
Still, we got in some great hiking and interesting views. The smoky skies combined with all the dead spruce from the spruce bark beetle kill made for some very other-worldly landscapes. We felt like we could be on another planet, definitely not in BC!
I really enjoyed looking at the stars while falling asleep on Sunday night. We left the rainfly off the tent and had a clear view through the bug netting. Monday was our first and most strenuous day of hiking. Got up and had a leisurely camp breakfast. Lake of the Woods looked lovely. (Many of these photos are large panoramic stitches and you’ll only get the full meal deal if you click on them to view!)
Lake of the Woods with Pyramid and Quiniscoe Mts in the background.
Didn’t see any smoke yet. Plan for the day was to hike to Ladyslipper Lake and then up to the Rim, entering at Stone City. Here’s a map of the park and the core area. It was only a 250 metre climb to the Lake but we noticed that our energy was lower than usual. Well, the park and Lake of the Woods is at 2000 metres elevation so that might have had something to do with it!
Here we are coming down into Ladyslipper Lake.
Coming down to Ladyslipper Lake
For some reason, I got the map turned around in my head and when we got to the lake, we headed off along the North shore to the West end of the lake. Lots of people at the lake fishing and swimming.
Here’s the view looking back where we had been at the West end of the lake
We considered trying to make our way up to the rim through that terrain you’re looking at and decided not to. Retraced our way back to where we turned right and should have turned left and around and up we went. A view on the way back.
It was a pretty hot day and we started up the trail to the rim. We stopped to eat on the way up.
View from our lunch spotcloseup view of some really nice rock formations come off the rim
After eating, headed back onto the trail. Here we are almost up on the rim.
You can see where we have to go to get up on the rim. S and J heading up.Almost there! S and J coming into Stone City
And you can see that the skies are no longer blue but the wind is now bringing the smoke up. Notice how much darker it is on the right than the left!
Finally made it to Stone City.
You can see the effects the smoke was having on the views which were severely cut off!Still, Stone City is an interesting landscape and with the smoke, really starting to look alien.
Star Trek or other space movies would have had a great time filming up here!
From Stone City we wandered Northwards along the rim to the Devil’s Woodpile. Love the orange lichens and other vegetation.
We’re now at about 2400 metres elevation
We loved this beautiful wide bench meadow. The colours are just so understated and subtle. And the smoke made it look so other worldly.
S standing on top of the Devil’s Woodpile
South side of the Devil’s Woodpile
From here we continued along the rim to the trail down to Glacier Lake
North side of the Devil’s Woodpile looking back along the rim where we came from
The trail down to Glacier Lake. It was much more friendly than the trail up from Ladyslipper Lake and is the way most people get up on the rim if they leave from the lodge.
Heading down to Glacier Lake
Another view of Pyramid Mountain as we head back down. Notice the sharp division between the smoky sky and not so smoky sky, and the colour of the sun, the white dot at the upper right in the smoke. To our eyes, it was actually a glowing red ball. Don’t quite know why it didn’t come out that way in the photo. Something to do with what lenses see vs what eyes see.
Pyramid Mountain
It was a full day of hiking. You can see the stats from my watch, here. Once back at camp, we relaxed, did a bit of swimming in Lake of the Woods to get the sweat off and really enjoyed eating our dinner.
Stay tuned for Day 2, coming your way in the not too distant future.
I’ve always wondered just where I “fit” photographically. There are so many superb picture takers and image makers out there. And I have been inspired by all of them.
Recently, I realized what I really like to shoot. First and foremost, I’m a landscape photographer. I love shooting macros too, but taking pictures of people, NOT! I can do it, just doesn’t churn my butter, as they say.
After many years of shooting landscapes, I realized what I really liked doing, and was pretty good at, was putting together panoramas. I seem to have an eye for just what needs to be in there to make it both a big picture and still retain all the elements that make a photo interesting.
So, expect to see lots of panoramas of places I have been. And I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Here’s a couple from our trip to Quadra Island this past July.
Walking Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island, BCSunset view of the Coast Mountains from Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island
Bioblogging with Rich 