Category Archives: Outdoors

Bears! Oh my!

Bear sightings are rare in Rocky Mountain National Park. I got lucky this day as I saw a bunch of cars pulled over and people looking at a small bluff about 75 yards away. At first I thought elk or maybe sheep but when we heard it was a bear I was all about it.

Olympus OM-1, 400mm, iso 2000, f8, 1/60

Angels Landing

Click on image to enlarge.

The early morning of March 23 at Zion National Park started with a record snowfall. We had been lucky to get a lottery spot for Angels Landing. With the effort to get there and the money spent there was nothing to do but try to see how far we could get. Clouds and snow came and went but we made it to the top. My reward was some great pics.

Olympus Tough, different settings, mostly on automatic.

Lake Haiyaha

Olympus EM1-Mark III, ISO 800, 12mm. f7.1, 1/500

In June of 2022, there was a massive rockfall off Hallett Peak. The rocks grinding together made a fine mineral flour that does not settle quickly. It was this flour that gave Haiyaha this milky aquamarine color. This was taken in October and the lake still had much of that color.

Ride the Flare

Olympus E-M1 mark3- 12mm, 800, f9, 1/1250, +.3

Second time I’ve tried this. Learned to pick time of day and my place to shoot. Sun was so bright it was hard to use the view finder so I knew what I wanted but couldn’t tell if I got it until I came down off the mountain. Sometimes I get lucky.

Milky-way from Horseshoe

OMD E-M Mark 3, 7mm, f2.8, ISO 8000, 13 sec.

On my last trip to Estes I had one night to try to capture the Milky-way. It was the first night there. The other nights were too cloudy and the moon was waxing too. I dragged my buddy Tom with with me to experience the stars in the darkness.

Later I tried Live Composite in camera, stacking in Photoshop and just processing in Lightroom. This is from Lightroom. The others were no better.

It was a nice night- clear, comfortable temps, no wind. A pack of coyotes were howling in the meadow, they were having a good time too.

Ice Climbing

OMD-E M1.3

In the Wild Basin area of RMNP we took a horse trail I hadn’t been on before. Got a great opportunity to watch and photo my son making a few runs up the ice. Not gonna lie, there were a lot more chunks of ice flying around than I expected. Glad I brought my helmet.

February 10, 2021

Bryce Canyon

Oly EM1.2, 7mm, f8

We had visited the North Rim, Bryce Canyon and Arches with in 4 days. While they were all amazing, we both thought Bryce was the best. We took a short hike 2 miles down into the canyon to get a feel for the depth of the canyon and fully experience the wonder of this place.

Nov. 7, 2020

Edge of Time

Edge of Time

In May, I went up to Jurassic Park to scout a location for star photos. A storm rolled in so the night shoot was cancelled but I did get this photo of my son on top of the Edge of Time.

(OMD E-M1 m2, 21mm, f16, 1/2500sec)