Teton Beach

Here, many weeks and one day late, is an SPS post: on the shore of Jackson Lake, taken down at surf level.

The wind whipped up some strong waves as it cruised down the mountains and over the open water.

SPS: Yellowstone Warm-Up

We'll be heading out West next weekend, to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I am posting a picture from Yellowstone to get warmed up this weekend. Here's the last one out of a set of black and white photos I took almost three years ago now.

This is the general landscape outside of Gardiner, MT, the northern entrance to the park. I'm also posting the picture in color, because I'm not sure anymore which one I like best!

The twist with this upcoming vacation is that my parents are going to be along for the ride. They have not been out West, so it's going to be an all-around adventure. I am sure you'll see quite a few interesting blog posts from my Dad and me in early September!

SPS: Joseph E. Ibberson Natural Area

We visited Ibberson, which is north of Harrisburg, about this time last summer. There was a small area planted with coneflower and other wildflowers, and I was able to capture a butterfly sampling the wares. I like this photo because both the butterfly and the flower look a little worse for the wear.

SPS: East Donegal Riverfront Park

Last Saturday, we went for the first time to the Township park three or four miles down the road from us. In the summer, the Susquehanna river runs wide and very low through this area, exposing a lot of rock that is usually under water at other times of the year.

Here's a general view. I am sure that the rocks I am standing on are underwater, or near to it, when the river is high, but now they are far above the water level.

In a cleft in the rocks, a stranded puddle bubbled with bright green algae. It looks like something from another planet.

I think I remember learning, in school, that holes like these form in river bottoms when smaller, rounded rocks become stuck in a depression. The current then agitates the rock, turning it around and around, and slowly a hole is drilled. Some of these are over a foot deep, it must've taken generations to form them!

Lastly, I found a butterfly checking out the clover in the park's picnic area. Anyone know what kind it is? This one's unfamiliar to me.

SPS: Last Shots from NYC

Here are a few last images from my recent trip to NYC. This first one shows some of the exotic produce for sale at a street market in the Chinatown area. From one street corner you could look north into the red, white, and green of Little Italy, then turn and look south into Chinatown. If I remember correctly, the bright pink fruit selling for $9 a pound was called dragon fruit.

This sculpture is in Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan. A sign stated that this sculpture stood in the courtyard of the World Trade Center and was damaged (as you can see) in the events of September 11th. It was moved here to serve as a memorial, as its original purpose was to represent the concept of world peace. There is an eternal flame at the base.

From Battery Park, you can see across the harbor to the Statue of Liberty. We did not have time to take the ferry out to the island to visit the Lady up close, but this is the closest I've made it to her yet. The National Park Service owns the property at the tip of Manhattan, and there is a large fort there called Castle Clinton. The fort was turned into an opera house in the 1800s, but later fell into disrepair, and is now restored to its historic state as a fort.

And lastly, here is a shot taken through a window into the Toys R' Us store in Times Square. Each "car" on this ride had a different theme. There was an M&M car and a Monopoly-themed car, for example. Barbie, Mr. Potato Head, Scooby Doo & the Cabbage Patch Kids got some face time, too.
Makes me want to be a kid again :)

SPS: Jersey Birds

I will get back to my NYC pictures in the next post, but I figure some New Jersey parks are the next best thing, especially for a Super Park Saturday. Birds were the theme of this last weekend. We camped in the Pinelands, and went to sleep both nights to the sound of whippoorwills. On Saturday, we went to Island Beach State Park, where there are several beaches for swimming, and a trail that leads to a small bird blind on the bay side of the island.

While in the blind, we thought we saw a Canada goose. But closer inspection revealed what I think is a brant. I have no idea what he's doing in New Jersey at this time of year; the information I read says that brants winter in the area but are not year-round residents. This guy missed the memo, I guess, because I'm not sure what other type of bird he could be.

The blind also enabled us to watch a snowy egret stalking along the edges of the water. Later in the day, we visited Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, which has an 8-mile scenic drive through a vast expanse of wetlands and tidal marshes. Here, we saw a flock of black skimmers:

Skimmers feed by flying low along the water, dipping their lower jaw into the surf, and scooping up dinner. I haven't seen a skimmer since an evening in Alabama, when Sandy and I were on our Great Southern Roadtrip of 2005 :)

Also at Forsythe, we saw a Mama swan and three cygnets (I had to look up the word for baby swans) :) These are mute swans, which are an Old World species introduced as decorative birds for parks and farm ponds. But of course some have escaped and live and reproduce in the wild.

Belated Super Parks: Urban Spaces

Yeah, yeah, I know its Wednesday, not Saturday :) But I owe you all a couple of park posts, and I thought maybe a break from national parks would be refreshing. So here are a few shots I took this last Saturday from public spaces in New York City:

This fountain was tucked away among large planters close to Rockefeller Center. I've only been to NYC once before, and I don't know how I failed to notice the many many artistic details that abound. My excuse is that it was dark outside on my first trip :)

I never thought to get the above picture in NYC, but it was easy in Central Park. A wider angle and a glance upward reveals the office buildings of midtown Manhattan.

There are a few water features in Central Park, and they are creatively named. This is The Pond, and there's also The Lake and The Reservoir :)

I hope to have a few more New York posts here soon, but we're going to the beach this weekend, so I might be distracted :)

SPS: Zion from the Outside

Zion canyon is beautiful from the inside, but its not too shabby from the outside either :)

One evening we had an hour or two of sunlight left and hated to waste it. So, we decided to go find Grafton, a ghost town about ten miles from our campsite. Grafton turned out to be beautifully situated, and the late evening light was the perfect complement to the red rock surroundings. The tall whitish spires at the top left are the walls of Zion. The land really had the "Old West" feel to it. It's no wonder that western movies are regularly filmed in this area.

This picture is one of my favorites from our stay in Utah.

SPS: "You Have to Post That One!"

When Dad saw this picture of a raven, he told me I just had to post it. So here he is, sitting on a rail fence at a parking area along the drive in Bryce Canyon.

Normally, the ravens are most interested in getting food from people, but this one had just started to scope out our potential as crumb-providers. In another park, I have actually seen someone get a fine for offering food to a raven. Rangers are serious about preventing animals from becoming acclimated to human contact, even beggar birds!

Bryce Canyon is known for its otherworldly rock spires. Here is a close up and a far away view of them.
This last picture was taken from an overlook called Bryce Point. I think I could've sat there all day just looking and drinking it in :)

How About a Super Park Sunday?

Between one thing and another, I never did my SPS post yesterday. So I am humbly submitting a Super Park Sunday post with lots of pictures to make up for yesterday's blip :) I've got some more Zion pictures for you. These photos follow my trip up to Angel's Landing, one of the more popular but also more strenuous hikes in the park.

I took this shot close to the beginning of the trail, where the going was flat and easy. The large rock promontory in the photo is Angel's Landing, and we're headed to it's top!

Here, we were only part way up the first climb on the trail. The view was already breathtaking, with the sheer wall in front of us framing up the cliffs in the distance. In many places I was amazed that a trail could exist at all. Signs indicated that the Civilian Conservation Corps built the trail through some tremendous feats in engineering during the 1930s.

After the initial climb, a nice stroll through a side canyon, and then another steep climb, you reach an area called Scout's Lookout. From the Lookout, you have an eerie, discouraging, view out and up the spine of Angel's Landing. I say discouraging because I was winded just getting up to the Lookout, and it seemed impossible to make it all way up to the Landing itself, across that narrow rock spine.

You'll notice I don't have any pictures taken on the climb up to Angel's Landing. Frankly, I was too scared to take my camera out - I wanted both hands and feet on the rocks in front of me :) But the views from the Landing itself were well worth the effort.

At the top, we could see the smoke from a prescribed burn on the rim of the canyon. From the floor of the canyon, the angle was too sharp and you couldn't see the smoke plume at all!

I will share a few more Angel's Landing pictures in my next post, including some more of the trail itself.

SPS: Zion's Court of the Patriarchs

Thought I'd start out the post-vacation SPS posts with a taste of Zion. I did some internet research for information on the various trails in the park before we left. I read that the trail normally used for horse riding was supposed to have good views whether you were on a horse or not, and since most people without horses never thought to hike it, it was relatively peaceful, too.

Well, my internet directions were a little fuzzy, and we missed the horse trail. We actually ended up on an unmarked trail, with no name, that entered the area known as the Court of the Patriarchs. The area is named for the three large rock spires that tower over the narrow valley. Each spire is named for a Biblical patriarch: Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac. We did not see one other person while we were on this trail, but we did run into some animal friends:

This frog (or toad?) was hanging out by a small stream.

This lizard was extremely patient with us. I took a number of pictures from about 3 feet away, and when he showed no sign of caring about me, I circled in until I had the S2 on supermacro, positioned about an inch from his eye. Still didn't care one bit!

The sky on this day had some interesting clouds, which made for visual interest, and also helped to cut the bright sunlight, allowing for some decent exposures. Justin and I both felt that, even though we'd missed our intended target, we'd still run across something very worthy: solitude in a busy park!

SPS goes Black and White again

Last Saturday, I promised I'd share the rest of my b & w Yellowstone pictures, so here they are:

This formation, I think, is known as the buffalo. It does have that shape to it. The buffalo is one of the hot springs in the Mammoth Hot Springs area.

As you drive into the Mammoth Hot Springs area from the south, you look out across a valley to a dramatic rock face.

And finally, a trumpeter swan preening in a small lake. We found two swans and were able to approach quite closely, as long as we took a few steps at a time and gave the birds to become used to our presence.

SPS goes Black and White

Sandy has been doing her best to convince you all that Bryce Canyon is the best place ever, so I am feeling the need to lob a few more Yellowstone shots out there :)

A ranger told us that this elk had been fighting fairly heavily the day before, and was probably resting on this day. He was tucked away in the remnants of a marble terrace, out of the sight of other bulls. The ranger told us that many elk like to hang around the hot springs formations in the cooler weather, because of the heat the springs provide.

These three shots were all taken in and around Mammoth Hot Springs, on the northern edge of the park, back in fall of 2005. I remember learning that this area is like an "inside-out" cave, because the hot water seeps out of the ground and deposits marble (travertine, I think?) in terrace-like formations as it evaporates. The entire area is enchanting.

I found that I had five or six shots that, for whatever reason, looked average in color, but really appealed to me in black and white. I will have to share the other three shots next week :)

Western Wildflowers

Here are some western wildflowers for your Super Park enjoyment. I'm not sure what any of the varieties are, but they were mostly in Mesa Verde and Black Canyon NPs, in Colorado.




I spent some time this morning with the PA Wildlife Photographer, shooting Pennsylvania wildflowers. We'll have some shots to post from that expedition soon, I'm sure :)