The last couple of weeks I've been talking about some of the unique features found near the eastern edge of Yosemite National Park in California. There's one more gem in this part of the world that I have to talk about, and then I promise I'll move on. So how about a ghost town?

Sometimes the most interesting things are found on the way to something else. That's how it is with the tufa towers at Mono Lake.

Last weekend I went on a hike with the Seattle Mountaineers to a place called the Kendall Katwalk - an amazing section of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that was blasted out of a tall cliff face of solid granite so the trail could continue past an area that would otherwise have been, well, let's just say a bit of a challenge to pass. (Read that as impossible to pass without serious climbing gear.) So this week we're going to talk about - you guessed it - something else! Throughout that hike we heard the frequent warning calls of pikas (to pronounce this, think "bikers" with a Jersey accent), and so I thought I'd spend a couple of minutes talking about these cute little guys.

First of all, if you Googled the word "naked" and ended up here, you can go away now. I have to assume, though, that if you did do that, this post would probably not show up in the first thousand or so pages. So you're probably pretty tired by now. But you never know. No, this post is about wildflowers. (I know, but bare with me. Ahem.)

I love photographing Paris! I don't think I'll ever get tired of going back there to shoot. In fact, I've already been over there, say, about, well, exactly one time when I actually took serious photos, but that's not the point. The point is that it's an amazing city, a photographer's dream in fact, and I can't wait to get back. And I will. Eventually. But in the meantime, I can reminisce about my last trip there a couple of years ago.

It was Galen Rowell I was thinking about as I drove down to Mount Rainier National Park last Sunday to photograph the Milky Way - under overcast skies. This would either be a complete waste of time and gasoline, or if the forecast for "Partly Cloudy" later that night went the way I hoped, a great night for photography. Obviously I was betting on the latter.

Wow, it’s hot out there! We’re not supposed to have this kind of weather in Seattle until after July 4th, and yet here it is. And we’re getting off easy compared to the Southwest where they’re seeing temps into the 120s! Yikes! Even with A/C, which presumably almost everyone in the Southwest must have, there […]

When I show my work at exhibitions and art fairs, by far the question I am asked the most is, “How did you do that star trails shot?”. It’s not always phrased that way. Sometimes I get “Is that real?”, or “What is that”, or “Does that really happen?”. “That’s taken in daytime, right?”. Well, […]

It’s an interesting world out there, and one of the things that makes it so interesting is the people you meet. But first, some background. Back in December, Getty Images invited me to sign a contract with them and upload some of the photos in my Flickr Photostream for display on the gettyimages.com website. One […]

Yosemite is one of those places you just can’t stop going back to. It sucks me in just like it sucked in John Muir, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and so many others. Recently I wrote about my latest trip to Yosemite and also about photographing my first “Moonbow” there (OK, actually my only Moonbow), but […]

OK, it’s time to do the grizzly bear story. I’ve been putting this one off because frankly, I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed because I didn’t get the shot. Well, I did and I didn’t. Let me explain. A couple of years ago, I signed up for a Mountaineers Photography trip to Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in […]

This is one of my all time favorite stories, because it shows that no matter how much you prepare, there are just some things that you can’t anticipate, and you have to be able to improvise to get the job done. A couple of years ago I signed up to participate in a photography workshop […]

A few years ago when I was really starting to get into digital photography, I was looking through a list of photography workshops being offered, and one of them struck me as being particularly interesting: students were going to photograph a “Moonbow” in Yosemite National Park. Well, that sounds pretty cool! What the heck is […]

This is the time of year when a lot of folks in the Pacific Northwest start itching to get back to hiking and backpacking in a snow-free environment. Not everyone wants to avoid the snow up in the mountains, but lots do. So the question of where to go when your favorite trails are still […]

“‘Cause if it is, I’m staying in my warm sleeping bag!”, I half whispered, half yelled to the annoying interruption to my sleep outside my tent. “No no, get up! I have a plan!” came the reply. Uggg. Really? It was serious pea soup out there last night, and conditions weren’t looking any better this […]

Last week we talked about all the reasons we shouldn’t feed the wildlife while hiking and backpacking. This week we’ll look at a different way of, um, supplying the animals with nutrients. Last October I joined four Mountaineer friends on a trek of sorts to The Enchantments, a gorgeous area in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, […]

I cannot believe it’s been almost four years since my last trip to Yosemite! Well, it was time to go back, and Southwest Airlines wanted to make it cheap and easy, so I booked a trip. But this time would be different. Four years ago I wasn’t much of a camper/hiker/backpacker/snowshoer/scrambler, so I stayed in […]

One of the advantages of being in my newsletter “club” is that you have access to some of the dirty little secrets that sometimes accompany my images. Yep, it’s true – not everything in my image gallery is exactly what it seems. But first let’s talk about the contest. I seem to be on a […]

I’d like you to meet my little friend, a golden-mantled ground squirrel who lives in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in the Canadian Rockies. He came out from his den while I was photographing in the area to inquire about snacks. Now the thing you have to understand about this area is that it is grizzly […]