Double Arch is huge. That's Jason standing below the first arch.
 

 
The sun goes down as Jason and I hike out of Canyonlands using jeep trails. A sudden and unexpected snowstorm prevented us from using our planned route through slickrock canyons. At this point we still had about 5 miles to go. Our 15 mile adventure was exhausting but he and I made a great team.
 

 
When we crawled in the tent around midnight there was no sign of snow but we woke up to several inches of it. This is when Jason remembered that halos around the moon (such as the one we had seen around midnight) reliably forecast precipitation. This much snow in the Moab Desert was shocking and somewhat disturbing. Slickrock provides amazing traction when dry, but it's incredibly slippery and dangerous when wet. We had hiked 7 miles in and out of canyons to get to our campsite in Chesler Park, mostly on slickrock trails. This meant we had two options: stay and wait for the snow to melt or find an alternate route back to the parking lot. We opted for the latter, hiking 15 miles in snow along jeep trails through the desert. It was the most exhausting hike of the year for me. The worst part was at the end, some 10 hours later when we found ourselves stuck on a slickrock cliff roughly 100 feet above the ground and within sight of the car. It was completely dark by then and the temperature had dropped to around 15 degrees. We were exhausted, hungry and freezing, but managed to keep good spirits and find a safe route down the cliff. Soon we were back in Moab drinking pints at the local brewery, reviewing our photos, and marveling at the security of banal comforts often taken for granted.
 

 
Jason and I spent Thanksgiving at this campsite in Chesler Park. After our holiday feast of turkey jerkey and instant mashed potatoes we took a nap and woke up around midnight to explore the area under the intense light of the moon. The Moab Desert gets extremely cold after the sun goes down. The previous night had a low around 5 degrees. This night was a little warmer, probably around 15 or 20. We had a candle hanging in the tent to provide some warmth. Surprisingly, there was a 22 degree halo around the moon. This is extremely rare in the desert since halos forecast precipitation. They're caused by light refracting through high altitude ice crystals, and are more common with sunlight than moonlight. Unfortunately, neither of us remembered that halos have been used for thousands of years to predict the weather. We climbed back in the tent with no clue that heavy snow was coming our way. Even if we had remembered that halos predict precipitation, we probably wouldn't have believed it. The Moab Desert only gets 5 to 8 inches of precipitation every year, the majority of which falls during summer monsoons.
 

 
This is one of my favorite areas along the trail to Chesler Park. It's a good view of the Needles across a canyon filled with sandstone spires shaped like mushrooms.
 

 
Jason looking towards Six Shooter Peak as we start our trip in Canyonlands on Thanksgiving.
 

 
Caves dot the landscape around Tsankawi. The soft tuff allowed the caves to be dug easily. Many of the caves contain air holes drilled (somehow) through the top, allowing fire to be used for heat, and most entrances face south, providing more warmth in winter. Many of the walls are still covered in soot, along with drawings carved into the stone (and clay, which was used to cover the interior walls). Although small compared to modern standards, such caves provided great shelter in the 15th and 16th Centuries when they were inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans. Traffic in and out of this particular cave over several hundred years has eroded the entrance.
 

 
Hundreds of years of footprints have eroded paths into the tuff at Tsankawi in Bandelier National Monument. The paths are up to a few feet deep in different locations around the former Pueblo community.
 

 
This is what remains of the plaza at Tsankawi. This was the center of a Pueblo community during the 15th and 16 Centuries. Few traces remain at first glance, but the foundations and remains of talus pueblos are easily found under the brush.
 

 
The constellation Orion shines behind the oldest church in the US.
 

 
This is the oldest house in the US. It's located just off the Old Santa Fe Trail in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico, across from the oldest continuously occupied church in the US and just down the street from the oldest public building in the US. The house was originally built around 1610, but because it's made of adobe it has required significant maintenance over the years. Oddly, photographs from the 1880's and late 1920's show the house with two stories, but photos from 1912 only show one. In each of these photos the sand/clay/straw/dung walls are shaped differently, sometimes uneven and cracked, sometimes smooth and clean. The house is built on top of an ancient pueblo that dates to around 1200.
 

 
This is the storefront entrance to the oldest house in the US. I've found photos from as far back as 1880 with this portion attached but I don't know if it's technically part of the house or not. This section of the building is in much better condition and it doesn't appear to share the same pueblo foundation.
 

 
Crater Lake.
 
(View location in Google Earth)
 

 
A large cow in front with a young bull behind her. Moose are great swimmers and can easily cover long distances with surprising speed. We watched these ones for 5 minutes as they effortlessly swam the entire length of the cove.
 

 
Not a very good photo, but I wanted the capture the moment anyway. All of us were hopeful about seeing moose during our week on Isle Royale. This was the first of four that I saw. We hadn't even been on the trail for an hour.
 

 
Prolonged exposures make lakes look like gelatin.
 

 
The ferry we took to Isle Royale from Copper Harbor. Ferries also service the island from Houghton, Michigan and Grand Portage, Minnesota.
 

 
Copper Harbor was one of my favorite places to visit while I was in college, even though it's 600 miles from Ann Arbor. It's located on Lake Superior at the tip of Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula (a large subpeninsula on the northern side of the Upper Peninsula). It's the most remote destination in Michigan, even farther from a city than Isle Royale. Unless you're a northerner by heart, don't go there in winter.
 

 
Infrared; the petals are pink.
 

 
Negative infrared at night.
 

 
The Missouri Lakes might be the most popular area for backpackers in the Holy Cross Wilderness. That said, the area is rather large and we found a private, beautiful site easily. The site was at 11,500 feet.
 

 
We were planning on backpacking to the Buchanan Pass area for the night, up to tree line from the western boundary of the Indian Peaks Wilderness. After 3 miles we stopped for rain and waited as lightning hit the surrounding peaks. The storm lasted 3 hours before we turned around and hiked out. There wasn't enough time left to hike to our destination and we wanted to hike through the wet forest instead of spending the remaining daylight in tents. It seemed like a good choice when we passed some firefighters on the way down.
 

 
These lodgepole pines are hosts of the Mountain pine beetle. Entire forests and mountainsides in Colorado are slowly being cleared by the beetle. Even my hometown will experience its destruction within a few years. It prefers a diet of Lodgepole and Ponderosa pines. The Mountain pine beetle is a native species, and this is a natural process, so the only thing to do is enjoy the colors and be very careful with fire, gas and stoves. Campfires are already illegal during most of the backpacking season in most Colorado wilderness areas.
 

 
We saw this cow early in our hike. She was hiding from the morning sun and heat in a shaded, marshy valley. The sight of us didn't seem to bother her but we kept a good distance.
 

 
The roots and stem of the Fireweed are edible and provide a good source of vitamin C. I've found it throughout the Colorado Rockies and throughout the Boreal forest in places like Michigan, Minnesota and Alaska.
 

 
Also known as Indian Paintbrush, Prairie-fire and Owl's Clover. Castillejas are incredibly common throughout the West. There are over 200 species of them.
 

 
This marshy area in Voyageurs National Park is called the Beaver Pond. I spent a few hours here watching for moose in the morning. I didn't see any moose or other people, but a pheasant and I scared the living daylights out of each other.
 

 
Drunken karaoke of obscure country songs was the astonishingly loud soundtrack to this scene. Orr (henceforth: Orrtucky) gave me goosebumps.
 

 
This is Honey, a rather portly black bear at the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota.
 

 
Another shot of Honey.
 

 
Following a blue heron at 5:30AM.
 

 
I camped this night on the left, the peninsula of an island campsite. Throughout my trip I stayed on 3 different island campsites and 2 different land campsites. A bear visited me here around 3 AM but only stayed for a few minutes. It quickly lost interest in my bear canister and then ran away when I started talking and hammering my small shovel against my camera tripod.
 

 
There are few things more relaxing than drifting solo through a calm wilderness at dusk in a canoe. 10 hours of paddling is past, camp is in order and clean, a hearty dinner sits heavy and a smelly sleeping bag awaits. Everything requiring thoughtful attention is past and nothing requiring effort remains. There is nothing else to do at night than canoe along the shores and in the bays, and that's just fine. I took a book, Hemingway, but it seemed like a sin.
 

 
A canoe can easily fly if the weather is perfect. When sky and water become indistinguishable, peaceful gliding on the surface of a lake is as close to flying as any human has ever come. Look up or down and there are sparse, stringy clouds in endless blue sky. Look to the sides, front or back and there are trees in midair, harmoniously mirrored on the tops and bottoms of islands in the sky.
 

 
From my campsite on Birch Lake.
 

 
This is one of my favorite lakes in Colorado. The trail is only a few miles and rather easy, but the lake is close to 11,000 feet above sea level and wildflowers dot the landscape throughout much of the summer.
 

 
I ran down the trail to catch these shots as the sun found its way through the clouds and the rain ceased. Five minutes of great lighting can make all the difference on an otherwise rainy day.
 

 
The largest dunes in North America are dwarfed by the Sangre De Christo Mountains.
 

 
Sarah walking around the cowboy camp in Chesler Park.
 

 
One of several bullets left behind by cowboys in Chesler Park.
 

 
Cowboys lived in Chesler Park from the late 1800's until Canyonlands became a national park in 1964. The ruins of their small camp are located along the trail that connects the CP4 and CP5 backcountry campsites. Warning: this image contains offensive language.
 

 
Our campsite in Devil's Pocket.
 

 
Sarah on the northern side of Chesler Park.
 

 
Sarah on the trail as it drops into Elephant Canyon.
 

 
A small arch along the trail to Chesler Park.
 

 
Sarah hiking down the Mt McConnel Trail, above the Cache La Poudre river and canyon.
 

 
The always popular Mathew W. Palmer action shot.
 

 
The Getty Center in Los Angeles, California is part of the largest arts endowment in history. The main attraction is the distinguished J. Paul Getty museum, which is free to the public and contains works by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Roman sculptors and Rubens. The collection primarily consists of pre-20th Century pieces, with an exception made for photography. Perched upon an entire hill in Brentwood, the views from the Center are spectacular and extend in all directions. This particular photograph looks west at sunset, toward a Pacific hidden under thick fog.
 

 
Looking down to the Colorado River from the South Rim.