Photo Blog

Each section includes a few preview shots from the set. Click the photo to expand or click the blue link to see the full set for that trip.

Death Valley v2 - here we go again to the hottest place in the US - entire set

Great trip. Nice photos. New adventures. Life is good!

Fossil Canyon - scrambling the washes in southern Anza Borrego - entire set

I did more than my usual tuning in Picasa (warmify, saturation and graduated tint) to make these photos really pop.

Arctic Survivor - winter storm on San Jacinto mountain - entire set

Snowshoes and 20° temps = fun!

Mineral King - birthday solo trip in Sequoia National Park - entire set

This was a great get-a-way trip, yet I still managed to meet some cool people along the way too.

This was the most challenging backpacking I've ever done, in terms of terrain, technical difficulty, elevation and gains/losses. I hit 11,800 feet twice during this trip, and stayed at around 10,000 feet for three days/nights. On the way out I was battling some thunderstorms and trying to get over Sawtooth pass/ridge before this system moved in behind me. It had been showering on me all day with some thunder in the distance. It kept getting closer, and picking up, some hail now and then, and so I kept climbing. I stopped only for one shot of Columbine lake (the last b&w photo in the set) and time enough to get down some trail mix. I was exhausted, but I kept climbing - baby steps, my lungs heaving, my legs burning, and my arms and poles scrambling for six inches at a time. Then the sky really opened up, the wind was probably around 40mph and blowing me off the trail. The hail was pinky-fingernail-sized and coming in at me just about sideways. The thunder was ... a little too close really. I said a special prayer: "God, get me over this ridge please!" And not too long after that I popped over that ridge and the wind almost stopped and the hail turned to rain. It was cold and it took forever to get down to the valley but after 14 miles and 4000 feet loss I finally found the truck in the parking lot! Whew! I didn't know my body could work that hard for that long. Pretty much the entire day from 10am-7pm I was packing. My legs were a little sore the next day, but not too bad.

I was a little disappointed though that my camera was in 1600 ISO the entire trip, and the shots are quite grainy because of it. Doh! Oh well, I was wondering why everything was coming out so bright! There are still some nice ones in here though. I didn't want to come back to work after this trip. I've been a little depressed this week; post-vacation withdrawal blah-blahs.

Life is good though!

Desert Divide - desert ridge on PCT  south of Idyllwild, CA - entire set

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Group backpack along the Desert Divide, a ridge on the PCT south of Idyllwild, with some meetup.com friends. Great trip! Awesome people!

Spitler Peak - backpacking the PCT south of Idyllwild, CA - entire set

Nice quiet solo trip on the PCT. Umm... good.

Whale Peak - high desert in Anza Borrego State Park - entire set

This trip had a more than usual warmth about it - an inner peace, or love, or thoughtfulness, or something spiritual. Maybe it was spending a good hour reading through the trail logs, and dreaming over the crazy-beautiful people who wrote those entries. Maybe it was meeting some very kind, desert-hippy biologist couples along the way, and sharing a bit of mutual love for the desert and the hiking. Maybe it was the bees that kept me company, just harmlessly nipping at my sweatiness.

Maybe it was the howling of the wind across the mountain summit that was like an orchestra of wooden pipes, playing a relentless and impressive symphony all night (a wise man told me once that God is in the wind, so when I hear wind, I think of God ... and well, He played all night for me - just me on that peak - which was amazing, and a little overwhelming at the same time).

Maybe it was the independence, the intimate aloneness, time to appreciate myself, to appreciate life, to be, to fall in love again with the moment. Maybe it was the daydreaming and thinking about good times, or laughing and forgiving for the not-so-good. Maybe it was the thankfulness. The knowingness. The right-mindedness. Maybe it was the flowing stream of prayers for whoever came to mind.

Then again, maybe it was just a little bit of altitude sickness. :)

McCain Valley - a little north of Jacumba, CA - entire set

I started out by following McCain Valley road from I-8 near Jacumba north for about 10 miles to Cottonwood Horse camp. I stayed the night in a campground for a change! I must be getting soft. High class living!

Don't let the name fool you - this camp isn't just for horses and it's a nice, quiet, well-spaced and well-kept campground. It' s a gem! Plenty of shade trees for the warm part of the days as well. A nice break from the heat of the valley, at around 4000 feet, perfectly cool at night! My favorite part = no people! I'm not accustomed to all of the luxuries of campground camping ... like having a toilette, running water, fire rings... and even a picnic table! Wow! You don't realize how handy a picnic table is until you get used to preparing meals on the back of your tailgate. Then you know how comfy it is to sit on something sturdy. Anyway... as you can tell I'm beside myself about this campground.

I hiked south from Cottonwood for what seemed like three miles or so and then turned east for another couple, and then scrambled a bit to the top of Sombrero Peak. At the top there was a trail register in an old army ammo can that had entries from the 1970s... and maybe older as some of the pages in the journals were disintegrating just handling them. I didn't dig through them too much, but just enough to appreciate a few decades of one-liner wisdom found in those pages - pretty cool! I guess the way people feel about life and hiking in the mountains hasn't changed much in the last 40 years.

And then on the way out on Sunday I hiked Tule Mountain, which was only a couple miles but with a good bit of bushwhacking. I couldn't find a trail anywhere. I got a little wary about hidden rattlesnakes and also my legs took a beating by the scrub, but overall it was blast!

A bit of trail magic - as soon as I got back to San Diego, my clutch died in the parking lot at Costco! What are the chances that Big Country would get me safely home (close enough) before breaking down. But I'm not complaining, she's a good ole betty that truck!

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Photos by Chalcyst.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.