Yellowstone - Grand Prismatic Spring

I had always been in an awe with Grand Prismatic Spring pictures on the net, and wanted to capture the same using my lenses.

We started out really early in the morning to avoid the crowd on the long July weekend, but believe me morning is not the time to shoot a spring. It had rained a little previous night and low morning temperatures leading to a lot of steam engulfed the entire spring, colors were not very visible even from a close distance. We planned to come back by noon, and headed to Old faithful for the day.

The shot is taken from a nearby hill, after a short but steep climb on the trail to Mystic falls. The day was little cloudy with almost no direct sunlight, but the Grand Prismatic colors stood out brighter than ever.

Adieu,
Divya

World Photography Day

August 19th is celebrated as the World photography day !!!

I was reminded of the day, when I started exploring photography with a humble Canon 1000D with a 50mm prime f/1.8 lens. Sharing my first definition of Bokeh,

Adieu,
Divya

Sunset @ Lake Tahoe California

Lucky to catch a beautiful sunset at Sand point in Lake Tahoe. Reached there a bit early and enjoyed the sunset colors,

Adieu,

Divya

Winterland Monument Valley

No doubt this road trip did not turn out exactly as it was planned. It snowed and we found ourselves in a winterland. Probably the best way to start the New Year 2015.

Monument Valley is a Tribal park on the border of Arizona and Utah. We had driven from Las Vegas for more than 12 hours owing to low visibility and heavy snow storm.

About stay at Goulding's Lodge

Park was open but still in sheets of snow on the road, the snow chains had to be taken out. I realized that there was one more lodge just inside the valley, though I don't regret staying at Goulding's rather we enjoyed.

We could not cover the mystery valley and certain other parts of the valley as they are accessible only with registered Navajo guides.

Some shots at the valley in untouched spray of snow.

1. Elephant Buttes & The East/West Mitten Buttes, look like hands. Shot from the Visitor center

2. The Three Sisters formation

3. Totem Pole -

4. Artist's View Point

We did not have much to do, since all trails were under snow. A funny incident though happened when we could not drive the car up an elevated curve and the snow chains came out, thanks to some kind Navajo people who did help us out.

Adieu,

Divya

Wildflowers at Eielson Alpine Hike Denali National Park

We went on a ranger led hike to the Eielson Alpine. Its a slightly strenuous hike with 1000ft elevation gain, but the ranger talk made the hike a lot more casual. Top of the hike gives an amazing view of the Mt. McKinley and Denali National Park.

While coming down the hike, clicked some summer flowers and a squirrel on the trail. Not sure of all the names, but the last blue flower is Alaska state flower Forget-me-Not

Adieu,
Divya

Snow & HorseShoe bend

Page was on the travel list during our visit to Monument Valley. It had snowed heavily a day before and everything was covered under the soft white blanket. We cancelled the Upper and lower Canyon tours since there was no sun and snow was definitely there.

The walk to horseshoe bend is very short and easy from the parking area, probably less than a mile round trip. It was hard to get a nice frame, since the edges of the horseshoe cliffs had slippery ice. But we managed with one person holding the tripod base so that it doesn't slip into the river and me taking the shot.

A trip to the canyons and horse shoe bend without snow is still pending.

Adieu,
Divya

Alaska Trip Day 2 - Road Trip from Anchorage to Denali National Park

After a great day at Whittier, we had to drive from Anchorage to Denali. It was supposed to be an extra long drive, since we had to stop at every place we had on the map. Reached Denali an hour after midnight and sun was about to set.

• Alaska Trip Day 1 - Prince William Sound Whittier
• Alaska Byron Glacier Trail

First pit stop was Thunderbird falls, which is a mile round trip to the waterfall. In my opinion it was simple and can be missed.

Thunderbird falls trail

Next stop was Wasilla lake, it was a little cloudy else the colors in this valley were beautiful. It was a pleasant lake, perfect for picnic or a rest stop.

A Mirror lake is a definite stop, but this mirror lake did not charm us. The water had gone a little muddy and unclear and the clouds did not help for sure.

A lunch stop at Talkeetna downtown. Downtown is a really small place, we picked up few souvenirs.

Mt. McKinley the tall one behind the clouds, from one of the pit stops near Talkeetna. 

The legendary McKinley lodge with the famous Denali View. We reached here around 9:30 PM and the lodge had closed, though a cup of hot chocolate would have been so good.

Mt. McKinley behind the clouds as seen from the lodge,

The road trip from Anchorage to Denali had been so picturesque, you want to stop at every turn and click pics. The below rays of lights was clicked around 11 PM somewhere near Denali National Park.

We stayed at Grizzly bear resort near Denali, reached quite late and tucked ourselves into the bed.

Midnight sky at 1:30 AM

The road trip was beautiful, definitely a better idea than taking the train as you have flexibility and option to take detours.

Adieu,

Divya

Hetch Hetchy Dam/Valley

I am amazed that not many people know about the Hetch Hetchy valley, it's like a sister valley to Yosemite but at lower grounds and not a valley anymore. The valley was converted into a dam and reservoir to provide water to the city of San Francisco. This valley has a lot of history and political story behind it which can readily be found on the net.

Hetch hetchy valley was the favorite of all in Yosemite to John Muir, he spent his last days in hope of conserving it but fate had some other plans. This was our first visit to the Hetch Hetchy valley and in one word it was beautiful. The reservoir was blue at its best neighbouring the towering granites and displaying the humongous Wapana waterfall which is undoubtedly looked the largest of all waterfalls in entire Yosemite valley.

Since Hetchy Hetchy is not very crowded like the Yosemite valley, parking was easy to find just at the dam entrance. Trail to Wapama falls is a 5 mile roundtrip walk with not much elevation gain.

The trail starts with a short tunnel at the other end of the dam, and it moves on the edges of the reservoir. The granite mountain on the right is Kolana Rock a large portion of which is submerged in the reservoir. If you have seen the X-Men II you might relate with me when I say, the reservoir looked mysterious.

Wapama waterfall is humongous, it's huge when compared to many other waterfalls in the Yosemite valley and still had water even in this serious drought. The last section of this trail is wooden bridge, which had washed away few years back owing to high water levels leading to casualties. So cross it with caution.

A mini rainbow at waterfall edge. Another note of caution would be to look out for rattlesnakes, we saw two on our way back.

The trail continues on to reach elevated levels, to the lake source for Wapama, but we left that for another day.

This valley is serene with no crowd, you can hear silence and enjoy it. Its nature at its best.

Adieu,
Divya

Yosemite Moonbow

Yosemite if not read or explored about can leave you unfamiliar to many natural wonders. We visited Yosemite in February to capture the Horsetail firefall but unfortunately the waterfall had dried up but it was still a good feeling to see how the sun plays with the sunset color.

More about Yosemite Firefall here,

The April visit was to see a new wonder in itself the Lunar Bow. First noticed by the legendary John Muir himself, yosemite moonbows need plenty of water in the lower yosemite falls, full moon on a clear night only certain days of the year when the moonlight is at a particular angle to the waterfall.

Don't forget to grab a night light to reach the lower falls, we made this mistake and had to spend 15-20 min to make our way to the bridge only to realize the large crowd had taken up all possible tripod space available.

The moonbow is not very colorful to the human eye as its unable to identify color range at night and rather looks like a silver arch over the waterfall. Only camera when set on long exposure capture the true colors of the bow. Due to less water the bow appeared quite low on the bridge and went flat in an hour or so.

I am definitely coming back to click this wonder again, but this time with a clear camera sensor, better skills to focus and better planned shots. No doubt the first timings have their own charm.

Adieu,
Divya

Yosemite Horsetail Fire Fall

Horsetail fall is a seasonal waterfall in Yosemite with little flow in winter and onset of Spring. Also popularly known as Firefall owing to a natural phenomenon which occurs around mid of February when the sun is in a certain position and waterfall has a decent flow. The last rays of sun just before sunset illuminates the firefall giving it look of flowing molten lava.

The fall is on the east side of El Capitan, some people confuse it with the man made firefall in yosemite few decades back but that was different.

The fall is best seen and photographed from a small clearing close to the picnic area on the north road leading out of Yosemite Valley east of El Capitan. Leaving you with more detailed links on photographing this phenomenon.

http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape-photography-blog/2012/01/26/the-best-time-to-photograph-horsetail-fall-revised/

This february the weather was perfect with hint of clouds and prefect shade of red from setting sun, but sigh there was no flow in the fall.

Adieu,
Divya

California Almond Fields

California is leading producer of almonds in US, and you can visually get a confirmation for that while travelling in and around famous California route 99.

We saw flowering Almond fields while returning from Yosemite to San Francisco through Merced. From a distance these flowers look like cherry blossom, but are quite different when held close. California almond fields are a great opportunity for infinity pics.

Adieu,

Divya

Pink sunset

As the summer approaches the color starts saturating with hues of pink, oranges and seldom violet at sunset. I love staring at these colors for hours.

This is a random shot taken last year  from my balcony. The sky could have not got any more pink I guess,

Adieu,
Divya

Alaska Byron Glacier Trail

After spending the day on a cruise at Prince William Sound we had enough light and time to finish the Byron Glacier trail, thanks to the sun which was still on our head at 8 PM. It felt weird to have your sunglasses on at 8-9 PM to avoid the strong sun glare.

Around 49 miles south of Anchorage turn onto Portage Valley Road and travel 6 miles to Boggs Visitor Center. Its very near to Portage Glacier boat dock.

The visitor center had closed by evening, so we pretty much had to rely on the road signs, since the internet too had gave up on us in Alaska. Bryon glacier is probably one of the easiest and comfortable trails to reach and experience a glacier(Also Matanuska Glacier).

The trail is flat and meanders through a fine stream gushing from the glacier. The trail just changes from shrubs to an open snow area. A little walk into the tails leads to a pile of rock debris. You have to carefully walk over the rocks to get nearer to the glacier.

Receding glacier, stone debris, water streams from the glacier make the perfect scenery.

I would definitely advise to be very cautious while walking on melting ice and also from falling rocks. While we were there, we saw a rock almost half the size of bus break from the mountain and roll half way down before getting stuck in a pile of snow.

Its a great moment to watch from a distance, but very scary if you are up on that snow and mountain.

Byron Glacier is a very pleasant and easy trail, not to be missed when in this area.

* Do coat yourself with mosquito repellent
* Plan out the Portage Glacier, we missed that.

And thats how we ended out first day in Alaska, high on ice, colors and the expectation just rose from the rest of our Alaska trip.

Adieu
Divya