Seen at the 2020 (30th anniversary) Zoo Lights, Denver Zoo — 1995’s addition to the lights, captured through a Lensbaby 5.8mm f/3.5 circular fisheye lens.
Category Archives: Nature
Crop circles
Seen on a recent flight east (somewhere over eastern Colorado / western Nebraska), it’s center-pivot agricultural fields in the midst of what are essentially stabilized sand dunes:
It’s late-afternoon raking light like this that really brings out the ancient nature of Colorado’s eastern plains’ “sand hill” terrain. It’s all a desert dune field, (temporarily) frozen in place
Runkurakay Pass
So the high point (physically) of day 3 on the Inca Trail is Runkurakay Pass — with views just as good as Dead Woman Pass had, but not nearly as painful to get to. Just before the pass, the trail winds between two small hanging lakes (I haven’t been able to find any reliable names for them). First, we’re looking uphill / west across the lower / larger of the two (you can see some of my hiking buddies on the trail above it to the right).
In this next shot, we’re at the pass and looking to the east. Continue reading
A day 2 respite
Day 2 on the Inca Trail was (as you’ve likely gathered) quite a workout. Folks on this trek got a longer-than-usual break at the end of day 2, so we can take a break here as well — don’t you think? Continue reading
Well, that escalated quickly…
As I mentioned previously, day 2 of a 4-day Inca Trail trek is a brute. As one online source put it, it’s like climbing stairs without any landing for 5 hours straight. At altitude.
At least you’ve got great scenery to distract you (a little). Continue reading
Striped
Tulips in bloom in Denver’s Civic Center Park:
Nothing of profound significance here, I just liked the pattern these were planted in.
Just waiting for lunch to arrive
We spotted this little guy (gal?) near the visitor center for the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida.
Impressively camouflaged for such a little thing…
Tumbling tranquility
A calming scene, spotted in Portland’s Japanese Garden:
EXIF:
Olympus E-M1II, M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 lens @ 26mm
ISO 200, f/22, 0.4 sec handheld
Solar Bling
Another shot from my total solar eclipse trip back in August — this one a shorter exposure showing Baily’s Beads and prominences at the end of totality:
This was photographed in the wonderful town of Lusk, Wyoming — using an Olympus E-M1II camera and M.Zuiko 300mm Pro series lens.
A visit to Rifle Falls
As I may have mentioned previously, we bought a camping trailer earlier this year. So since camping is now a lot more comfortable for us than it used to be, we’ve been taking advantage of it to spend time in a lot of places we’ve not been to before. So it was that we spent a weekend in Rifle Gap State Park, on the west side of Colorado.
We honestly didn’t go into this trip knowing a lot about the park — we primarily thought it’d be a nice, quiet place to spend an otherwise hot August weekend. The camp site itself was clean and well-maintained, if lacking in trees to slow the wind. But not that far away from the Rifle Gap campsites is their sister park, Rifle Falls State Park — a real hidden gem of the Colorado State Park system. Continue reading