Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park, California

I, Bob, was looking through a folder of photos from a trip to Death Valley in January 2009 when I came upon this image.  The longer I looked at it, the more intrigued I became with the texture of it.  I was on the top of the tallest sand dune in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dune near Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley National Park, California when I took this photo.  I was looking down into a valley of sorts between the dune crests.  The foot tracks along the top edge give you a sense of scale.

I took this photo with the still function of a Sony high def Handycam, so it's not a high resolution image and will probably not look good if it's enlarged very much.

Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park

A view from the brink of the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park.  After viewing a major eruption of Steamboat Geyser in late July 2019, we enjoyed the rest of the sights in Yellowstone, including a hike to this brink.  The height of this waterfall is 109 feet and it always seems to kick up a lot of mist.  After falling over this brink the Yellowstone River takes a leftward turn toward the even-higher Lower Falls.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

McWay Fall, Big Sur, California, nearing sunset

In the Big Sur area on the coast of California is a state park name after Julia Pfeiffer Burns. Part of the park includes this waterfall that drops directly onto the beach. This waterfall is called McWay Fall. It is 80 feet (24m) tall and used to drop directly into the ocean. Mudslides and rockfall after the very wet year of 1983 caused a sandy beach to build up where there was none before. Now the water falls onto the beach, except during high tide. There is no trail to the beach, access is only by boat, due to the crumbly, unstable slopes.

There's also a sea arch in the sandy cove beyond the fall in this picture. We were able to see it during a visit in 2004, but the trail is partly closed now and moving beyond a barrier is not allowed.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Yosemite Falls on a sunny day in February, 2020

Here's Yosemite Falls on a sunny day in February, 2020. The winter season is shaping up to be another dry one, unfortunately. Yosemite Falls can be viewed from Cooks Meadow. The spot I, Rick,  chose in the meadow allows for a clear view of the upper and lower falls. The trees at the bottom block your view of the water except at this spot. There's a little used climb to the top of the lower falls along the level ledge with some trees to the right of the lower falls. As I was setting up for this shot, I saw some one or a small group of people moving at the left edge of that ledge. It made me feel like trying it myself sometime. Also, Alex Honnold was on that ledge during the "Free Solo" movie.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

The Yosemite firefall effect with a dry Horsetail Falls, February 23, 2020

The 2020 Yosemite firefall as seen from the El Capitan Picnic Area in Yosemite Valley.  After a very wet and snowy winter last winter, the 2019 to 2020 winter has turned very dry.  Horsetail Falls had no water in it, but the sun still put its slit of reddish setting sun light on the spot where it would've been.  This photo is from February 23rd 2020.  Clouds on the western horizon toyed with us off and on blocking and then unblocking the setting sun's light, but ultimately obscured the sun when the peak of redness should have happened.

This photo was about the best we got of the setting sun's light on the eastern flank of El Capitan.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Climbing a Simple Route in Yosemite, plus bobcats

This photo was taken at the end of a climbing session in Yosemite. We were climbing this simple route up to the tree at the top of the picture. We took turns belaying each other. Rick took a photo of Bob from the top of the route. Lots of beginner climbing classes come to this area to get people started. This is also along the trail between Camp 4 and Yosemite Falls.

While here we also had a family of bobcats walk past us. It consisted of a mother and 2 kittens. One of the kittens was lingering behind, so we didn't get a very good picture with all three together.

 

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Beauty Pool, in Yellowstone, sure is a beauty

Beauty Pool, in Yellowstone's Upper Geyser Basin, reflects the sky in this wide angle image taken July 31, 2019. You can get to it by starting out from the the Old Faithful area and hiking along the boardwalk on the east side of the Firehole River. It's just north of Grand Geyser, another feature worth watching. Beauty Pool is connected to the nearby feature called Chromatic Spring. When one of these features has their water rise and overflow, the water level in the other decreases. This back-and-forth between the two can take weeks or even years.

We were lucky to have no wind despite the cloudy conditions, so the reflection of the clouds turned out as we hoped. To fit the whole pool in the image, we used a wide-angle lens on a smartphone. It's capable of capturing images of 180º and 360º. This image was captured with 180º setting and edited for levels, local contrast, and sharpened.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Cave Falls from downstream, southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park

We finally visited the harder-to-get-to southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park known as the Bechler Region in August 2019.  Because of the many waterfalls and cascades in this corner of Yellowstone, it's also called Cascade Corner.

The highlight for us was visiting Cave Falls along the Fall River.  We posted an image earlier of the view of Cave Falls from the brink.  This view is from downstream.  The boulders on the left margin just below the falls are from the collapse of the alcove that gave Cave Falls its name.  So, these falls got its name from an alcove and not a true cave.  The characteristic that distinguishes this waterfall is that they are the widest waterfall of all of Yellowstone's many waterfalls at 250 feet across.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Robinson Twins Exploring Millerton Cave

In these two combined images, Rick and Bob are exploring Millerton Cave, located in eastern Fresno County, California. It's perhaps one of the best examples of a talus cave (also called corrasional cave) in the world. Rick is in the left image hoping to locate a small waterfall inside the cave. Bob is in the right image recording video of the inside of the cave while Rick provides the lighting. We've been to this cave several times but have yet to explore all of it. It's estimated to be 1/2 mile (.8 km) in length. It's located on public land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management called the San Joaquin River Gorge. It's also upstream of the Millerton Lake State Park. For those exploring it, there are some bolts already drilled into the granite at some of the natural entrances.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Upper Yosemite Falls from the trail

In Yosemite National Park, you can see the tallest waterfall in America. Yosemite Falls, has an upper section, a middle cascading section, then a lower fall. There's a trail that leads to the top of the falls so you can look down on the entire falls behind a guard rail. This image was taken from along that trail showing just the upper falls. We've been to the top of the falls and have posted a video about that day trip to our YouTube channel, Robinson Twins Natural Adventures.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Mount Rainier Enshrouded in Clouds

This is Mount Rainier showing the effect of high mountains creating their own weather. We saw a long line of people heading to the top of the mountain despite the clouds. Without the clouds, though, this would've been a completely sunny day. Mount Rainier is a volcano and the highest mountain in Washington state. It is considered a premier destination for mountaineers all around the world.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Grizzly Creek in Kings Canyon, 3 merged images

On the way to Kings Canyon National Park through the National Forest part of the Kings Canyon, we stopped off Highway 180 to look at Grizzly Creek Falls. You can hear it and see parts of it from the road, but the closer look is clearly better. From the trail I took, I had to cross the creek to get this full top-to-bottom view of the fall. It's on the north side of the Kings River and has a small parking area travelers can use to park their cars clear of the main road. It's only about another mile (1.6 km) to the boundary of Kings Canyon NP approaching the Cedar Grove area.

This image is the result of merging 3 separate images together. I took photos of the upper, middle, and lower part of the fall in order to get more detail and because I couldn't the entire waterfall in one shot since I was so close.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Steamboat Geyser at night, Norris Geyer Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This is a shot of Steamboat Geyser in the middle of the night.  Steamboat Geyser is the world's tallest active geyser and starting in the spring of 2018, it has entered a very active phase where the interval between eruptions is averaging about a week or so.

We went to Yellowstone at the end of July to early August 2019 to try to see a major eruption of Steamboat.  This photo was taken during the night of July 29th to July 30th while we waited overnight to make sure we didn't miss seeing it erupt.

Steamboat Geyser is in the Norris Geyser Basin in the northwestern central part of Yellowstone National Park.  This basin is considered to be the hottest and most acidic of Yellowstone's thermal basins.

While we waited overnight, Steamboat just steamed away and splashed water out once in a while, but didn't erupt that night.  However, our waiting did pay off after the sun rose, since it finally did erupt at 7:20 AM on July 30th. It continued erupting for much of the day, but we left after two hours and it was still going strong.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.