Today’s post comes courtesy of @STEMFemme from our recent hike on the Grayson Highlands section of the Appalachian trail!
Tag: Mountains
The Alps
One of the good things I can say about grad school is that it gave me the opportunity to travel to and see places that I never would have otherwise, like the Austrian Alps. The Alps really are quite spectacular and there’s nothing quite like flying into Innsbruck.
Hills near Innsbruck
I was able to grab this shot while traveling from a conference near Innsbruck. That part of the world really is something to see, it is exactly as picturesque as you might imagine.
Winter Comes to the Adirondacks
On my way back from my conference in Connecticut, I drove through the Adirondacks, where winter is arriving fast. The hills were dusted with snow and all but the most tenacious leaves were carpeting the forest floor. I pulled off the road for this shot in Tupper Lake, where the grasses, placid waters, and stubbly hills matched perfectly with the dense clouds and the random distribution of sunlight. The moment felt chaotic, strange—just a bit primeval. I had a chance to do landscape photography that truly excluded any human intrusion (save the eye of the photographer himself.)
Hills of British Columbia
Outside Vancouver (the city) are the hillsides, dotted with homes and apartment buildings and, farther north, massive rocks. (That’s a pretty rare combination.) The difference between the soft, welcoming pink hues of the sunset and those massive hillsides (with some lovely evergreens in the foreground) is stranger, the more I think about it.
This picture also illustrates the biggest difference I’ve encountered since moving from the west coast to the east: the environments are less staggering and overwhelming, but the skies (and the buildings) are much more so. I’ve had to reorient the way I shoot to account for it.
Hiking the West
Having recently spent a great deal of time hiking the forests of New England, the broad, grassy, and only sparsely forested hills of California are seeming more and more alien in my memory. With the fluffy intrusion of some low-lying clouds, the whole experience is rendered otherworldly.
Guest Post: Alien Flora
Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Christopher Klemm, who took this photograph in Joshua Tree National Park.
Alpine Peak
This one’s another from my trip to Obergurgl this past fall and comes from a short hike just beyond Obergurgl proper. The trail was a bit icy and snowy in bits and the three of us weren’t super well equipped for the terrain but man were some of the vistas spectacular, looking up at peaks like this one, or down toward rivers at the bottom of the valley we were flanking.
Northwest Sunset
Sunset over Puget Sound are always something special (assuming its not too overcast!), with views towards mountains and the silhouettes of small pleasure craft anchored just off shore.
Puget Sound and the Olympics
This view of the Olympics towering over Puget sound, from the community beach near where I grew up, always gets me. Just stunning.
Alpine Clock tower
Captured on the same trip that gave me the opportunity to capture the previous shots of Obergurgl I grabbed this shot from closer to the center of the village. I thought he combination of the pointy clock tower and the mountains which virtually encircle the village was pretty neat.
Alpine Village
On my recent European adventure I went out for a short afternoon walk which took me into the hills at the end of the valley beyond Obergurgl, Austria. From here I was able to grab this shot of Obergurgl and Hochgurgl and several surrounding chairlifts. It was still a little early in the season but many of the lifts were operating and people were starting to trickle in to these villages. Anyway the whole valley is incredibly picturesque and I will definitely have to return one day.
UBC Rose Garden
It may be hard to imagine that a kid that grew up in and around Seattle then went to school in Bellingham never managed to make it up to visit Vancouver, BC but somehow this describes me. Not that I never made it to Canada, I visited Victoria, BC plenty of times in high school. Now having visited I’d estimate I missed out on a lot by not visiting sooner. In the Vancouver environs is the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia which is really something. I’d say that UBC’s campus is, in many respects, precisely what a campus should be. Here’s a college campus which is incredibly close to major metropolitan area but which has somehow managed to completely surround itself with nature.
Pictured here is a shot in the late afternoon of one of the myriad of green spaces on campus, a rose garden perched atop a parking garage. What better way is there to hide an ugly, but necessary, facility than to cover it with something people want to look at? The view of the water and mountains beyond are just bonuses as far as I’m concerned.
Decaseconds 