Day 120 - Mount Rainier

My morning began at 7am with a music festival parking lot wake up followed by a long drive south through incredibly beatiful scenary to Mount Rainier. I stopped by popular Lake Chelan, but it was too touristy and crowded for my liking. The lake just outside of Chelan was just as pretty and this viewpoint serene.

After six hours of driving I arrived at Mount Rainier. The viewpoint from White Pass was awe-inspiring. Rainier glowed proudly in the perfectly clear sky.

Tired after a bit restless and short sleeping night, I found a quiet, shaded camping spot just outside the park, and napped until 530pm. Then I drove towards Paradise, the valley below the southern face of Rainier, known for its wildflowers. The road up to Paradise.

I hiked a few short trails, enjoying the dusk light views of Rainier and her many glaciers, meadows and streams.

The valley and Paradise Inn below. The famous wildflowers were almost all gone by this mid-July time due to the mountain receiving half of average snowfall.

There was a special astronomy program starting at 945pm tonight. They had a half dozen telescopes set up and promised great views of Saturn and the Milky Way and other star clusters. I found a lovey spot for a sunset and waited for the lights to go down.

The view of Saturn was awesome: you could clearly see the bright rings circling the bright star. But she looked like a child's drawing from so far away. It wasn't until one of the volunteer astronomers hooked his digital SLR camera to his top-notch telescope that things got sciencerific. He took four separate two-minute exposures of the Lagoon nebula, then stitched them together and adjusted the lighting and color right there.

After an hour, we had produced this image of the Lagoon Nebula, a baby star cluster being born!

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Day 43 - Capitol Reef

Capitol Reef, a national park centered around a 90 mile ancient seabed reef was next on my list. A sensationally scenic three hour drive from Bryce, back through Escalante, and then through a national forest led me to the park. A stop by the visitor center to get the lay of the land and insider info on local free BLM campsites complete, I set out on Chimney Rock trail up the the top of the first reef to get a view. Yes sir!! The weather was ideal for hiking and the views completely blissful, but I was frankly tired today. I set out along the scenic road down the west side of the reef and remember wanting to take a nap-- but still having a sense of urgency to complete the desert portion of my trip-- I pushed on and set out to hike down the Capitol Gorge and Grand Wash canyons. The Capitol Gorge had a "Pioneer Wall" with inscriptions from the early 1900s and the Grand Wash had a nice narrow section with towering canyon cliffs all around. I took a photo of the surrounding reef...

Day 35 - Escalante River

Our group of eight intrepid but novice backpackers and two incredibly experienced guides gathered for breakfast at 8am to meet, greet and bulk up for 5 days in the Escalante River area. We laid out all our gear to ensure we had the needed hiking, camping and survival supplies and drove to our trailhead for departure. We hiked along a trail following the course of the Escalante River for a mile or so before getting to our first of many river crossings. Wet feet were not something we could avoid so we simply hiked across and sometimes down the river. When the river ran close to the canyon walls we knew we would have to find a shallow entry to the river, then cross the river to the bench on the other side. Guides Andrew Skurka and Alan Dixon offered instruction along the way on map reading and route finding and information on local vegetation and geology and how the knowledge of both helped make your off trail travel more efficient. For example in geology their were two main ro...

Day 54 - Great Sand Dunes

I awoke to clear skies, a dry mattress and pillows, a second hot shower and a waffle-filled motel breakfast. I decided to head east to Great Sand Dunes National Park in order to climb 700 foot sand dunes surrounded by snow-covered alpine mountains--a rare site. Just about every road in Colorado goes over a pretty high mountain pass eventually, and this three and a half hour journey didn't disappoint. And Great Sand Dunes didn't disappoint either. After securing a dune-side campsite and waiting out a rainstorm, I set out to climb the dunes for a sunset view. Great Sand Dunes is also famous for its Medano Creek wave-like flow and ankle-deep water, making it popular with young kids. I hiked through it and started climbing the dunes, first to a high dune on the east side and over to the next highest dune and then the next highest et until I got to the highest one-/ properly called High Dune. I sat down, setup my phone to capture a time-lapse of the beautiful sunset my eyes were ...

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