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

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 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