Chuck-walla you lookin' at?

A chuckwalla lizard checking out the people along the trail to the feature called the Fire Wave, at Valley of Fire State Park, in Nevada. The Fire Wave was actually right behind me as I took this lizard's picture. There was a family up the slope looking down on it and they let us know about its presence. It seemed quite content to stay where it was and allow time for us to take plenty of pictures.  Chuckwalla lizards store fat on their sides so it makes them look "chubby". Other lizards, like the Gila monster, stores fat in its tail. Chuckwallas also can inflate their bodies with air to wedge themselves into a crack in the rock so that predators can't dislodge them.

The Valley of Fire State Park, in Nevada, is also famous with Star Trek fans. It served as the setting for the planet Veridian III in "Star Trek Generations", the one in which Captain Kirk dies and Captain Picard buries him.

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

Coming at you! A California Condor in flight over the Colorado River

Coming at you!  A California Condor glided over us at Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River, south of Page, Arizona.  We learned on this trip to the Southwest during Spring Break 2017 that all condors, except one, are tagged.  You can see the tags on this condor on the front edge of each wing.  Also, on the left wing, on the right as you look at this photo, you can see the antenna of a transmitter. This condor was Number 53, which turned out to be a five-year-old female, according to The Peregrine Fund researcher that we ran into later in the trip.

Not that long ago, only 22 condors were left in the world, but thanks to captive breeding and reintroductions, there are now over 200 in the wild.

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

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah.  This free-standing arch is perched on the edge of an amphitheater.  We hiked about a mile and a half on a mostly uphill trail to get to this view point.  The opening under the span of rock is 64 feet high and 45 feet wide.  This arch has had a number of names in the past including "Cowboy's Chaps," which it kind of resembles.  The snow-capped La Sal Mountains are visible to the left of the arch.

Much of this park consists of Entrada sandstone, which is a relatively pure sandstone that lends itself well to the formation of arches.  Over 2000 arches have been documented with Delicate Arch being the most famous.

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

Lehman Cave in Great Basin National Park, Nevada

During the 2017 Spring Break, we went to visit the Great Basin National Park in Nevada. It's not nearly as well known as many other parks, but it's the biggest National Park unit in Nevada. It used to be called Lehman Cave National Monument, but it was enlarged and made a National Park in 1986.

The Park Service offers cave tours to help show the features of the cave while also protecting them. The natural entrance is no longer used for entering and exiting the cave, instead, you enter and exit through separate tunnels that are sealed with doors at both ends. We tended to be the last ones to move along the tour since we took lots of photos.

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

Grand Canyon of Tuolumne, Yosemite, Sierra Nevada Backpacking 2009

The Robinson Twins just posted a video about Rick's third backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park. He went hoping to show others the string of waterfalls down the Tuolumne River in this canyon, but a forest fire prevented him from going far enough downstream to see all of them. So, of course, that means we have to go again. This video is only about 20 minutes long, so enjoy! Here's the link: https://youtu.be/QHhMT0NjV40

Here is a still photo Rick took of the Tuolumne Falls on the trip shown in the video.

Remember, it's no just a picture (video), it's a story!

Robinson Twins - American River Parkway

Our first recreational video, The American River Parkway, was video-recorded in 1999 and released in 2000. This part of Sacramento is our home turf, so to speak, so we wanted to make it first. We went to college by walking along the American River, we've biked the parkway's length several times, go jogging along it, and have paddled most of it. For the video, we also flew over it in a small airplane. We hope you enjoy the adventure that's within easy reach of hundreds of thousands of people in Sacramento County, California. Here's the link to our video: https://youtu.be/gmbOhAckfc8

The picture is from our airplane flight and shows Discovery Park and the confluence where the cleaner American River joins the muddier Sacramento River. The closer bridge is Jibboom Street while the larger bridge is Interstate-5. Old Sacramento State Historic Park is nearby to the right of this photo (not shown).

Remember, it's not just a picture (video), it's a story!

Teton Crest Adventure (The "Real" Teton Crest)

We've put our video of the backpacking trip we took to cover the Teton Range in 1999 online. There is a Teton Crest Trail mostly in Grand Teton National Park, but the National Forest on the western side of range also had a Teton Crest Trail, which actually covers a longer stretch of these mountains. We backpacked on the Forest Service's trail but discovered after completing our trip that the Forest Service trail is no longer maintained. We had to do some route finding at the north end, so we had a little bit of a challenge starting out. We backpacked from the Hominy Peak trailhead in the Jed Smith Wilderness, Targhee National Forest to the Rendezvous Mountain tram at Teton Village. The trip was in September so we hardly saw anyone else and the weather was clear until the last day. The high point of the trip was at Table Mountain, where we could look across Cascade Canyon at the Grand Teton peak, only about 2 miles away.

Here's the link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/k3Sj6CJY4_Y

Remember, it's not just a picture (video), it's a story!

Half Dome reflected in the Merced River in September

This picture of Half Dome was taken in September of 2012 after the summer heat subsides and the weather cools leading into autumn. It was actually taken after the autumnal equinox of September 22nd. This is a very popular spot for taking a picture of Half Dome such that it is reflected in the Merced River. You can park next to Cook Meadow, then walk over to the Sentinel Bridge that crosses the river in order to look eastward at Half Dome. We tend to avoid Yosemite during the summer because of the crowds, but in more recent years we've decided to go ahead and visit during the summer anyway.

Drive over the bridge in the evening and you might find it packed with photographers hoping to get the reddish glow of the setting sun reflected from the face of Half Dome. The best time to get pictures of Half Dome is in the afternoon and evening since the face is in shadow throughout the morning. The face has a slight northeast to southwest angle, so it isn't lighted by the sun until afternoon.

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

The Maze in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, east of San Diego, California

This feature is called "The Maze" and is within the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, east of San Diego. In some places, you have to turn sideways to get through. The last time I went through it, we encountered a couple of men racing up through the maze with their GPS units recording their hike. We had to pull over to one of the small pockets on the side to let them pass. We had parked near the upper end, where these hikers parked at the lower end and hiked up. We didn't make it all the way to the bottom since we had other places we wanted to see that day, so we turned around soon after encountering the other hikers.

This picture was taken at ISO 400, 18mm focal length, f3.5 and 1/60 second, vertically to emphasize how steep this feature really is.

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

Lexington Arch in the south end of Great Basin National Park in Nevada

Lexington Arch is a limestone arch in the southern part of Great Basin National Park in Nevada.  To get here you have to drive on dirt roads and then hike about a mile and a half on a rugged trail.  The fact that this arch is composed of limestone is very noteworthy, since most of the arches in the West occur in sandstone.  The fact that this rock span occurs in limestone may mean that it was once part of a cave that has eroded away.  Or it may be that the stream that carved Lexington Canyon carved this span when the canyon was much shallower, in which case this arch would actually be a natural bridge.

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

Rick in Yosemite above Tunnel View, selfie with shadow

Rick is in Yosemite working on getting a picture of the firefall on February 12, 2017. Along the way, we stopped at Badger Pass for some cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, then stopped at the parking area uphill of the Wawona Tunnel. From this area, Rick decided to try getting a selfie after looking at Yosemite Valley and Cascade Creek. After he took it, he discovered that he got his own shadow when taking this selfie. Make's for an interesting effect.

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

Horsetail Falls in Yosemite showing the firefall effect.

In Yosemite, a rare event called the "firefall effect" happens for about two weeks, one week on either side of February 18th, along the eastern ridge of El Capitan. The sun sets at such an angle that the cliff of this eastern ridge is lit up by the setting sun, which can glow red when the conditions are right. A seasonal waterfall named Horsetail Falls can catch this red light and take on a glowing appearance to the point where it can appear to be on fire or like a lava flow.

This image was taken on February 12, 2017, around 5:30 PM. The light from the setting sun turned a shade of pink but never turned fully red. Actually getting a deep red sunset works out better when there is more dust in the air. The whole state of California has had many storms this season and the air has been pretty well cleared of dust for now.

This picture is one that I took on February 16, 2007, ten years ago. This was my first attempt to capture this event after I had learned about it.

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

Bob at Moss Cave in Craters of the Moon next to the Bridge of Tears, almost 20 years apart

Bob having dinner at camp by Moss Cave, Craters of the Moon, late 1990's

Bob hiking next to Moss Cave in August 2016, Craters of the Moon

In the late '90's, we backpacked into the Craters of the Moon Wilderness to find the Bridge of Tears, Amphitheater Cave, and Moss Cave. Craters of the Moon is known to be a very windy place, so we set up our camp on top of a collapsed lava tube, which ends up being like a trough, for better wind protection. Rick took the above picture of Bob having dinner near our tent with Moss Cave's entrance behind the tent in that image.

In 2016, we went back to the Craters of the Moon Wilderness to pay another visit to the area and to see the cave we discovered. Because we were the first to describe the cave's location in writing, we got to name it. Since we, the Robinson Twins, discovered it and it had two openings, we called it Twin Cave. During this return trip, we went to the Bridge of Tears and Moss Cave where I had Bob pose in about the same spot where we had camped almost 20 years earlier, as you can see in the bottom photo.

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