Though the tiny lights of the Coachella Valley set the scale for the mighty size of the San Jacinto Mountains, even that range is dwarfed by the mighty scope and expanse of the sunset.
Ending the Season with the San Jacinto Mountains
Tag: mountain
Mohonk Swimming and Boating
Boaters can’t swim across the lake (without checking with a guard first) and boaters can’t enter the swimming area, but they interact across a thin membrane of ropes and floats. Look at that log, moored perpendicular to the floating platform on the right; it splits the difference between the boat/swim categories.
Hotel Floating in the Sky
Glaciers carved deep between stones to create the lake on which Mohonk Mountain House appears to float, but I feel like those glaciers left behind a little bit of their cold blue thermodynamic impact in the colors (and temperature) of the water.
Never So Glad to See Sunrise Over Spanish Mountains
After our redeye flight from Madrid to New York turned around halfway over the Atlantic due to mechanical issues, I’ve never been so happy to see sunrise on dry land.
Sun Peaks Around the Mountain
Though I missed it when I originally processed them, I was entertained to look back at this pair of shots from early spring in Salisbury, Connecticut—one pointing northeast and the other pointing southeast. The light of the rising sun is visible in the distance in both directions where the shadow of the mountain over town is absent.
Palms to Pines Panorama
Definitely click through to Flickr for the full-resolution detail on this panorama covering the approach of the Palms to Pines Scenic Byway into Palm Springs.
Light-Up Gazebos
Mohonk’s gazebos are iconic, but in my childhood, they vanished into the woods as night fell. The addition of strings of lights to them means that they stand out more without the sunlight.
Forest Fortress
Rather than a fortress in a forest, this is a fortress composed of forest—or at least, it feels that way. While the far-off mountains and the lights of Palm Springs may be visible from the air, the ground-level setting is far more constrained and cozy.
P.S. Can you spot your humble photographer in this shot?
Mohonk and Its Fire Suppression System
After a teaser from the climb up on Friday, here is the full view from the top of Mohonk’s Skytop. This high-resolution panorama is definitely worth clicking through to Flickr for the full-sized version. There’s a lot here: the hotel and its namesake lake, but also the trails and conserved forest space around it. The water retention pond in the foreground is the semi-secret reason for Mohonk’s continued existence: though there were a variety of all-wood structures like Mohonk in the past, most have burned down over the years. This is the water source for the Mountain House’s fire suppression system, which was installed early and has preserved the structure through tribulations.
Keyhole View from Skytop
If that picture of Skytop from last week sparked the question, “What does the view look like from the top?” I’ll meet you halfway; this is the view from the climb up. (The rest of the view will come Monday.)
That cliff face exploding from the trees is part of the Shawangunk Range of mountains, home of Mohonk Mountain House.
Lake Mohonk in the Clouds
The line where the crown of trees around Lake Mohonk gives way to the much-farther-away trees of the valley beyond looks like the sort of trompe-l’œil that might, these days, be generated by a glitchy machine learning algorithm. In this case, however, it’s just down to the unique mountaintop-lake location of Mohonk Mountain House
Gazebo in the Sky
On the path to Mohonk’s Skytop, this gazebo hangs into empty space. The Bob-Rossian layers to this image make the uncanny perch even more dramatic.
Suburbs Up to the Wall
An early-morning flight out of Palm Springs airport paints gentle hues onto the massive wall that is Mt. San Jacinto. The orderly, be-palm-tree’d grid of the valley floor runs so sharply into the mountainside that I was immediately reminded that a sea once occupied the valley.
Boat Dock Before It Opens
A quiet early morning at Mohonk Mountain House’s dock has a place for every boat and every boat in its place. I like the way the path of the dock mirrors the path of the mountaintop in the distance. This calm-before-a-busy-day setting is also a metaphor for Decaseconds: I finished processing all of my pictures from a trip to Mohonk at the end of last summer. Like the boats, my work is organized and ready to be shared.
Tiny Figures and Big Rocks
Can you spot the tiny figures at the top of the hill? I’m confident that tiny figures produce a sense of grand scale in images—particular desert shots, like this one, where the inhuman nature of the place can make understanding the sizes of objects difficult. Nonetheless, I find myself wondering how small the figures in an image can be before the viewer loses the ability to recognize them as human.
Decaseconds 