Wilderness Photography

[thurin]

Off Topic for the Fiddleback Forum, but since some of us call this place our primary home on BF, I thought it might be interesting to startup a general Wilderness Photography thread. I know you guys have incredible shots as I've seen them on Instagram. That's a cool platform for sharing stuff, but I find it hard to get the full effect of wilderness pics on there.

Please let us know where the pics are from and any interesting details. I'll start with a few.

Dream Lake with Hallett Peak in the background in Rocky Mountain National Park in the summer time:



Trail near Fraser CO in the fall:



Sprague Lake in the winter. Another one from RMNP. I took a friend from India to see snow for the first time in his life.

 

[Chief]

Hallett with Bear Lake in the foreground.

Homepage pic was taken in RMNP, love it there.

More RMNP pics click 2012 here or 2014 here.

 

[Tech-1]

These first 2 are Sycamore canyon...

[/url]IMG_2245 by Tech Craft, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]IMG_2241 by Tech Craft, on Flickr[/IMG]

Bill Williams mnt. with a cloud covered top...

[/url]IMG_2228 by Tech Craft, on Flickr[/IMG]

and Pikes Peak as seen from my mom's front door (well not exactly, I did zoom in some!)...

[/url]IMG_1871 by Tech Craft, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Tim the Wizard]

Beautiful!

Here are a couple of mine:

 

[swonut]

Great Smokey Mountain National Park (Icewater Shelter on the AT)

Grand Canyon

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Arba Minch, Ethioia

 

[VASticks]

Wow! Awesome pics guys!

 

[thurin]

Great additions everyone.

Seeing Chief's pic of Bear Lake and Hallett Peak gave me an idea and I hope you'll indulge me. I want to show some views of Hallett Peak from along the trail that starts at the Bear Lake Trail Head at 9,475' and ends at Emerald Lake at 10,090'. It's about a 4 mile round trip hike. Hallett Peak isn't a tall one by Colorado standards topping out at 12,713' but it's one of the most recognizable because of the views of it's face from the RMNP trails.

Looking over Bear Lake towards Hallett Peak. I took this one at the end of the hike after all the other ones and the clouds had started to move in.



Heading up from Bear Lake you first hit Nymph Lake. This is a little tree lined lake with a bunch of lilies floating in it. You can just see Hallett peaking it's head up on the left.



The trail follows a stream that flows between all the lakes. There are some nice little falls along the way and there's some ponds that form. This is right before Dream Lake where things level off for a bit.



Dream Lake is simply beautiful. This is a very popular spot. This time when I went I got up to the Trailhead very early (before sunrise) to beat the crowds and I was able to have the trail and the best picture shots all to myself. On my way back down, there were probably 100 people waiting to take a picture from here.



Emerald Lake is the final destination on this trail. It sits nestled between Hallett Peak on the left in this pic and Flattop Mountain on the right. Yes, the jagged outcroppings are part of Flattop, beyond them it's flat up there. There's one lake further up right at the base of Hallett but it's not accessible from this trail.



If you ever want to check these places out, just give me a shout. Because of the elevations, it's advisable to spend a day or two in Denver acclimating before heading up to RMNP to save on the altitude sickness. I hope you'll forgive if I'm coming off as a Colorado travel agent.

 

[schmittie]

Wow. These pictures are amazing. I have got to go and see the western US!

 

[SA Condor]

First 3 were taken in the Badlands, SD

Now this is my type of selfie!!

Sun started to set and the colors got real pretty

The Prismatic Spring was my favorite thing to shoot in Yellowstone

Then off to Washington to see the Olympic State Park

A sunset on the bay in Sequim, WA

Crossing the border from CA to AZ and caught an awesome sunset

Catching the early morning sunlight in the Grand Canyon

To be continued . . .

 

[Chief]

Nice shots all! Really like the one of Emerald Lake, but am partial to that area. Alberta Falls, one of the trails close to Hallett.

 

[Dcaggie06]

I wish I could take photographs half as good as you guys

 

[Mistwalker]

Beautiful shots guys, I love threads like this! I'll see if I can add something later but this one is a bit intimidating....

 

[thurin]

A few more from the Colorado Tourism Board, aka me.

These are from Colorado National Monument, on the Western Slope near Grand Junction. I had gone out to meet up with the Hill People Gear bros and made a detour through the monument on the way. It was 107 degrees in Grand Junction which can be seen in the distance in the first photo and went I got up through the monument and to our camp site it was 60.







Now that I have a real camera, I need to revisit some of these places. All of the shots I've posted up in this thread so far have are from my iPhone and a point and shoot.

 

[newyork]

Speechless. You guys live in some amazing places. Wow!!!

 

[xxwjtxx]

Some of my favorites from Yosemite to the Blueridge over the past few years

 

[xxwjtxx]

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[Uncle_P]

Nathan,
Truly a great thread. Good on ya, as we say in the south.

Everyone else who posted,
Thanks for posting. I am really enjoying these pics and descriptions. Also, like reading your impression on why you like that spot, or a certain aspect of a picture. It's always fun to see the mindset of the person taking the photo.

Great job all!!!

Preston

 

[Mistwalker]

I don't do a lot of traveing outside the S.E. U.S. anymore, so no good wide-open-spaces shots to share. I'm usually under a canopy of some sort or maybe a small clearing, but here are some of my wilderness shots.

.

 

[FeralGentleman]

Beautiful photos all. Also nice reading the descriptions

 

[twrhnd1]

Thurin, dug these out after seeing all of those pics of Hallet and RMNP. They are no where near the quality of the rest of the pics here but thought they might be fitting.

Sunrise from the base of Hallet Peak



About half way up the face of Hallet from a nice soft grassy ledge



Side view of Hallet on the descent



A couple from the hike back out