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  • A group of pelicans gather at Indian Key during low tide. Indian Key is a popular place to stop while exploring the 10,000 islands unit of Everglades National Park.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/13/2014
    Pelican Gathering
  • My camera captured these 19 meteors in only 93 minutes starting around midnight on December 14th. I was a bit disappointed that my camera battery died after this because I wondered how many more I missed. Despite the moonlight many meteors had no problem shining through. I couldn't think of a better place to watch the Geminid meteor shower than this remote island in Everglades National Park. I paddled out the day before and spent the night on Picnic Key. A lack of sleep, sickness, and battling the tide the next morning made it an exhausting trip. But it was worth it to see the best meteor shower of the year.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/14/2014
    Out of the Blue
  • A piece of coral on the Picnic Key beach lights up in the evening sunlight. This was one of many small islands in the Ten Thousand Islands Unit of Everglades National Park.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/13/2014
    Golden Coral
  • A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky above Picnic Key in Everglades National Park, Florida. The star Canopus is reflected on the water with the brightest star Sirius in the middle of the picture and the constellation Orion above. My flashlight lighting up the trees was actually unintentional. When a raccoon approached me I instinctively shined a light in its direction. The raccoons here are very bold because they have no source of freshwater and attempt to steal from campers.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/13/2014
    Make a Wish
  • Perfectly clear skies made for boring sunsets and sunrises at Picnic Key But the light was nice as the sun neared the horizon. The 2 islands in the distance are the Stop Keys.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/13/2014
    Picnic Key Beach
  • This is what the end of  the beach on Picnic Key looks like. It was almost like quick sand at the edge of the water since my feet would sink deep into the sand with every step. The island on the left is Tiger Key, which is also a popular place to camp.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 12/13/2014
    End of the Beach
  • The Lost Twin Lakes are found at 10,300 feet  in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. A 6 mile hike from the West Tensleep Lake trailhead, it's the perfect spot for an overnight backpacking trip. The two lakes are in a glacial cirque surrounded by massive granite cliffs up to 2,000 feet high. Treeline in the Bighorns is at about 10,500' feet so most of the trees were very short around the lake.
    Edge of Treeline
  • With winds blowing over 40 mph, it was not the most pleasant evening for a hike. At first it was sunny, but the weather changed quickly as a cold front blew through. A fiery orange glow appeared at sunset while rain showers moved in over the mountains. I was standing on top of Lodge Trail Ridge, a mile high vantage point overlooking the small town of Story to the west. There's a lot of history here, as this ridge sits in between Fort Kearney and the Fetterman Battlefield. The fort was established to protect travelers of the Bozeman Trail, an offshoot of the Oregon Trail which passed through Indian land. Tensions culminated in 1866 in an ambush led by Crazy Horse that killed 81 soldiers. It was the US Army's worst defeat in the West until the Battle of Little Bighorn 10 years later.
    Cold Front Sunset
  • The Lost Twin Lakes are found at 10,300 feet  in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. A 6 mile hike from the West Tensleep Lake trailhead, it's the perfect spot for an overnight backpacking trip. The two lakes are in a glacial cirque surrounded by massive granite cliffs up to 2,000 feet high. This was a stitch of 6 pictures.
    Lost Twin Lake Panorama
  • With severe weather in the forecast, I headed downstate to do some storm chasing. This cell formed over the Laramie Mountains before pushing east onto the High Plains. At first it took it's time maturing. But just before 4PM it transformed from an ok looking storm into this in only 10 minutes. As the storm moved into a better wind shear environment, it turned into a mothership supercell displaying very impressive structure. I was mesmerized watching it roll across the Nebraska stateline outside of La Grange. Despite the ominous and otherworldly look, the storm wasn't severe at this time. As it passed over me it brought small hail and blowing dust with lots of tumbleweeds.
    Mothership Supercell
  • Electric Peak in Yellowstone National Park is the highest in the Gallatin Range. It lies directly on the border of Montana and Wyoming, exactly halfway between the equator and the north pole. The 10,969 feet high peak got it's name after the first men to climb the peak were struck by lightning near the summit.
    High Voltage
  • The Lost Twin Lakes are found at 10,300 feet  in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. A 6 mile hike from the West Tensleep Lake trailhead, it's the perfect spot for an overnight backpacking trip. The two lakes are in a glacial cirque surrounded by massive granite cliffs up to 2,000 feet high. The light from the crescent moon was sparkling in the lake before it set. The planet Jupiter can also be seen just below the moon.
    Sparkling Lakeshore
  • Water gushes over the top of Manido Falls right before the larger drop. The wooden overlook can been on the other side of the river.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/3/14
    Manido Falls
  • The northern lights are reflected in the waters of Lake Superior as clouds move in. During a very cloudy week in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, there was only one night that was partially clear. After hiking 10 miles to a campsite on the lake, I waited for it to get dark. The aurora was initially visible as twilight ended, but then it faded away. After midnight it became brighter, and the colorful pillars rose up and drifted from left to right.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/1/14
    Lake Superior Aurora
  • This 20 foot high waterfall in Matthiessen State Park doesn't even have a name. You have to hop across a creek and hike up a canyon to find it. The pollen on the surface of the water was continually swirling around the small pool.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: May 10, 2013
    Swirling Falls
  • As my alarm dinged at 4AM I didn't know what I'd see when I peeked outside my tent. The chances were about 50/50 whether it would be too cloudy to see the lunar eclipse. But to my delight the sky was clear. Right on schedule, the moon was entering Earth's shadow - called the umbra. The left half was dark while the right half was still brightly lit. As the moon sunk lower, the shadow deepened and took on the characteristic reddish color. While the middle of the US never got to see the moon in totality before setting, it was close enough. <br />
Chimney Rock is perhaps the most well-known landmark in Nebraska and on the Oregon Trail. The towering rock spire was seen by half a million migrants who passed by with wagon trains in the 1800's. It was visible from up to 30 miles away , which is a 2 day's journey. Back then it may have been up to 10% taller than it is today.
    Chimney Rock Moon
  • Ever since I saw this mountain engulfed by a storm earlier in the summer, I was hoping to have a chance to get some better pictures of it. There's something about a lone isolated mountain that's just begging to be photographed under the stars. There are at least 10 Square Buttes in Montana, and this one isn't even the most popular. That makes it hard to find information on it. In case you didn't know, a butte is a flat-topped mountain with steep sides. This particular Square Butte rises 2600 feet above a town with the same name and a population of 20. Finding the right spot to place my tripod isn't always easy. I needed to be NNE of the butte, not too close and not too far with no hills or anything else in my way. There was no time to waste since the milky way and Jupiter were in position as soon as it got dark. The milky way won't be visible for too much longer before it passes behind the sun for the winter. To get a sharper picture I took a 12-minute exposure of the mountain and combined it with a shorter exposure of the sky.
    Galactic Butte
  • It was nearly 11pm in southern Saskatchewan. I had just watched a bright auroral substorm send colorful arcs high into the northern sky, but it was starting to fade. Then I turned around, looking south, and this is what I saw. A bright pinkish strip of light stretched from east to west, while the crescent moon hung low on the horizon. It's one of the most unusual things I've ever seen in the night sky. This strange type of aurora is called Steve. The name started as a joke, but it stuck.  Steve was first captured last year by a group of aurora photographers in Alberta. After ESA flew a satellite through it earlier this year, it was discovered that it's comprised of very hot (10,800°F) ionized gases moving along at 4 miles per second. This ribbon of light is 16 miles wide and thousands of miles long. I watched as Steve started overhead nearly paralleling the US-Canada border, before slowly moving south. It turned into a green "picket fence" pattern before fading away. It was awesome to see such a mysterious phenomena which is still being studied by scientists.
    An Aurora Named Steve
  • The last sunlight of the day shines on Mount Sublette high in the Absaroka Mountains. This peak is located directly on the continental divide which separates the drainage basins of the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. Togwotee Pass at nearly 10,000 feet is known for frequent sightings of grizzly bears. But by this time of year they had long since been in hibernation. The 4.5 feet of snow made it challenging to take pictures. The center column on my tripod broke after I tried pushing it all the way down into into the snow, which was an expensive mistake.
    Sublette Alpenglow
  • In early August the aurora made an appearance and I was able to see it for the first time this year. The sun follows an 11 year cycle where the solar activity that causes the aurora (sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections) increases and decreases. As we head toward solar minimum predicted in 2019, the aurora will become increasingly rare in the mid-latitudes, but will continue to occur around the arctic. Last year I was able to witness the aurora 10 times, mostly from Illinois, but this year has been a lot different. This picture was taken from the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains above Dayton, Wyoming. It was a spot I scouted out in advance and knew it had a good view north. While I was taking pictures, a sharp gust of wind came up over the ridge. I held on to my tripod, but the wind blew my camping chair down the side of the mountain.
    Dayton Aurora
  • Greenstone Falls is one of the bigger waterfalls on the Little Carp River. It is located in the backcountry of the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/1/14
    Greenstone Falls
  • This was the best lightning storm I saw all year. A couple thunderstorms passed very close, but the rain stayed out of the way. Sometimes I stack lightning shots, but this is just one exposure. The two lightning crawlers occurred about 15 seconds apart within the 30 second exposure. After chasing some storms to the south and coming back home I think I saw about 10 thunderstorms on this day. There are often deer in this field at night, you can see a couple under the bright streetlight.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: June 25, 2013
    Night Crawler
  • After hitting the trail at sunrise I made it to the top of Laramie Peak shortly before 9AM and setup my gear. The true summit is littered with towers and communication equipment, so instead I pointed my camera at this subpeak to the south. The weather was perfect and the thick smoke from Montana wildfires that I was worried about stayed to the north. At 10:23 the partial eclipse began, visible only through a solar filter. Anticipation started to build as more of the sun became blocked out. After over 50% of the sun was covered the light became slightly dimmer but it was only noticeable if you've been watching the whole time. The temperature dropped by over 20°F and jackets came out. At 90% the sky became a dark blue and the landscape took on a smoky appearance. At this point the light began to change by the second. The moon moves from west to east, and the shadow approaches at 1700mph from that direction. At 11:45 the last piece of sun disappeared. Some of my favorite effects of totality were the parts I couldn't capture. Cirrus clouds in the west glowed orange like at sunset. It was similar to twilight but instead of the glow appearing in only one direction, it encircled the entire horizon. Venus came out first, then the other planets and brighter stars. It's a very strange feeling looking at the sun in what's normally the brightest part of the day and instead seeing a black hole. The ~100 people around me marveled at one of the most beautiful spectacles in nature. But just like that it was all over. The full disc of the sun returned at 1:11PM.
    Fleeting Moment
  • Below the stairs leading up to the Summit Peak lookout tower was this forest. Fog would quickly move in and then recede again.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/3/14
    Foggy Forest
  • Vibrant fall colors were above the Bonanza Falls on the Big Iron River.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/2/14
    Below Bonanza Falls
  • Waves lap the shoreline in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness as the sun sets over Lake Superior. By surface area, Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world. 10% of the earth's fresh water is contained in this lake, enough to cover both North and South America with 1 foot of water. The shoreline extends 1,826 miles which is more than the distance from LA to Chicago. 40 degrees is the average water temperature.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 9/30/14
    Lake Superior Sunset
  • Among the purple prairie clover, milkweed plants shoot up as well as a few coneflowers. Darkness had fallen on the Nachusa Grasslands as the nearly full moon rose higher in the east.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: July 10, 2014
    Moonlight Breeze
  • Purple coneflowers bloom in the prairie as a nearly full moon rises in the east.The Nachusa Grasslands give you an idea of what Illinois looked like hundreds of years ago, before settlers arrived and converted it to farmland. 3,000 acres of this rolling grassland have been restored to their original state in this preserve. Less than 1% of the original tallgrass prairie remains, which makes this a rare sight in Illinois. Sandstone outcrops, many varieties of colorful wildflowers, and numerous wildlife make this a beautiful place. A herd of bison will soon be brought in from South Dakota as well. There are few paths in this preserve, so you have to go off-trail to explore the landscape.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: July 10, 2014
    Nachusa Coneflowers
  • Lake Falls is a 45 foot high waterfall that flows from Matthiessen Lake in a state park with the same name. There was mist in the air the closer you get to the falls, making it challenging to photograph without getting my camera wet.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: May 10, 2013
    Lake Falls Mist
  • With just a few hours left in Greenland, I had time for one more hike before my flight. So I went to Lake Ferguson at sunrise. Though devoid of color, it was a beautiful snowy morning. At the lake it was dead quiet, but I could feel someone watching me. That was when I turned around to see this lone muskox. While muskoxen have always inhabited the northern shores of the world's largest island, this population was reintroduced. The vegetation in Southwest Greenland is lush in comparison to the northern tundra, and muskoxen don't have to worry about polar bears which are rare here. That's enabled them to thrive from 27 individuals in the 1960's to more than 10,000 today. When Kangerlussuaq was still a US Air Force Base, it wasn't unusual to have to prod a muskox off the runway. Though similar in appearance to the bison, muskoxen are a bit smaller with much thicker coats that keep them warm during the long, harsh Arctic winters. They don't typically lose their horns so I'm not sure how this bull managed to break his.
    Arctic Beast
  • This picturesque church sits at the edge of Esterbrook, Wyoming. The tiny community with a population of 52 is only reachable by dirt road. Towering in the background is Laramie Peak, scarred by a wildfire from 5 years ago. The 10,276' high peak was a well known landmark on the Oregon Trail. It could be seen from up to 100 miles away, which was about 1 week's travel. From the summit on a clear day you can see all the way into South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado. The far-reaching views made it the perfect place to watch the solar eclipse when I returned 2 months later.
    Church of Esterbrook
  • A bright Perseid meteor burns up in the earth's atmosphere while the milky way stands on end in the west. After finding the nearby campground full, I drove a dirt road up to 10,000 feet until I found a spot flat enough to camp. With no trees up here, there was a great view of the sky and the lights below are from the town of Greybull. Over the 2 nights of the Perseid meteor shower in mid-August I captured nearly 1,000 images with about 10% of them containing meteors. This one was the brightest and the longest, spanning over 15 degrees of sky. I nearly missed it because it was the very first frame of my time lapse. Perseid meteors are made up of small pieces of comet debris that cross the Earth's orbit every year. It is the extreme speed at which it enters the atmosphere (over 100,000 mph) that causes the debris to vaporize and glow. The color of the trail reveals the chemical composition. The green is nickel or magnesium, and the red is ionized oxygen or nitrogen in the upper atmosphere.
    The Longest Streak
  • The Escarpment cliffs above the Big Carp River Bridge were hidden in the thick fog.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: 10/2/14
    Big Carp Bridge
  • Not every lunar eclipse is the same. Each one varies depending on which part of Earth’s shadow (called the umbra) that the moon passes through. Atmospheric conditions on Earth also influence the view. Lingering exhaust from the massive volcanic eruption in Tonga in January helped make this eclipse darker and redder than usual. In Wyoming, totality started during twilight. The extra light revealed more details in the landscape. Then after twilight ended, thousands of stars came out, along with stripes of green airglow. A dark sky and a full moon, normally enemies of each other, were seen together for just a few minutes before normal moonlight returned.<br />
While the lower slopes of the Bighorn Mountains are now a vibrant green, up here at Powder River Pass, winter is still hanging on. Nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, temperatures still drop below freezing at night even in mid-May.
    Powder River Pass Eclipse
  • The night started out clear and quiet with the Milky Way shining brightly to the south. Then one by one the stars began to disappear, first to the north, then to the west. Flashes of light soon caught my attention, each one closer than the last. Even though I was trying to go to sleep, I could ignore the storm no longer. I went to the opposite side of the 400' high rock formation called Boar's Tusk, where I was camping. The long-dormant remnant of a volcano now came alive with a different kind of rumble. Focusing and exposure were tricky in the pitch black, but eventually I caught this double lightning strike. I felt lucky to witness rain in the Red Desert because under 10 inches falls here annually, with even less in a drought year. The parched ground absorbed the water and released the smell of petrichor. In Southwest Wyoming the Continental Divide splits to form the Great Divide Basin. So the little rain that does fall here never makes it to the ocean and mostly evaporates.
    Boar's Tusk Rumble
  • On this night I found myself in the Arctic wilderness of Abisko National Park in Swedish Lapland. After trekking for 9.5 miles I arrived in this stunning valley in the Scandinavian Mountains. The northern lights came out right away when night fell. But I had to wait for them to become more active and spread to the eastern sky over the 5,000' high peak named Kieron. That happened after 11:00, when bright auroral curtains shimmered across the sky, lighting up the snow and turning it green. The temperature hovered at -10°F and a stiff wind was blowing across the frozen Abiskojaure lake. But this captivating view was worth every step to get here and every moment of cold endured.
    Midnight Flare-Up
  • One of the most notable landmarks on the Oregon Trail, Chimney Rock towers hundreds of feet above the surrounding plains in the Nebraska panhandle. The pillar was at least 10% taller 150 years ago, but it has since been weathered down by wind, erosion, and lightning. I was glad to be able to capture some nice light at sunset on the west side of the rock formation, even though it didn't last long. The anvil in the distance is from a thunderstorm which produced a tornado nearby a couple hours earlier.
    Last Light On Chimney
  • It was 4AM in the grasslands of southeast Montana. I was spending the night under the stars while my camera clicked away, but the cold breeze made sleep hard to come by. I thought I detected a bright flash of light, but wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. It wasn't until I got home that I found the source: a fireball meteor. According to American Meteor Society reports, the meteorite (if it survived) likely fell near the CO/WY border some 300 miles away. It theoretically should have been visible from at least 10 states, I can only imagine how bright it must have been overhead. The green color reveals the composition to be mostly nickel, and it left behind a vapor trail (known as a persistent train) for over 10 minutes afterwards. My only goal was to capture the milky way for the first time this year after it hid behind the sun for the winter. The fireball was just an unexpected bonus.
    One In a Million
  • It was nearly 11pm in southern Saskatchewan. I had just watched a bright auroral substorm send colorful arcs high into the northern sky, but it was starting to fade. Then I turned around, looking south, and this is what I saw. A bright pinkish strip of light stretched from east to west, while the crescent moon hung low on the horizon. It's one of the most unusual things I've ever seen in the night sky. This strange type of aurora is called Steve. The name started as a joke, but it stuck.  Steve was first captured last year by a group of aurora photographers in Alberta. After ESA flew a satellite through it earlier this year, it was discovered that it's comprised of very hot (10,800°F) ionized gases moving along at 4 miles per second. This ribbon of light is 16 miles wide and thousands of miles long. I watched as Steve started overhead nearly paralleling the US-Canada border, before slowly moving south. It turned into a green "picket fence" pattern before fading away. It was awesome to see such a mysterious phenomena which is still being studied by scientists.
    Steve and the Moon
  • This is one of the most beautiful times of year in Wyoming. The valleys are green and the mountains are filled with colorful wildflowers. This was taken near Red Grade Road. The trees were burnt in a wildfire 10 years ago.
    Burnt Tree Bloom
  • Morning sunlight illuminates an unnamed peak in Montana's Beartooth Mountains. This was the view I woke up to while camping in the East Rosebud Valley in Early May. In this mountain range are found dozens of glaciers, and the largest high elevation plateau in the US outside of Alaska. In the upper reaches of these steep slopes avalanche activity was high. A cornice, which is an overhang of snow caused by strong winds, can be seen on the upper right. Overnight the snow solidified as the temperatures cooled. But once the sunlight touched the snow and temperatures warmed, the snow became unstable and gave way. In my 10 mile hike through the wilderness I witnessed about 20 avalanches, most of them small. Sometimes I would hear them before I saw them, with the noise sounding like distant thunder. See below for a picture of one.
    Beartooth Mountain Majesty
  • The temperature was somewhere around 10 to 15 degrees below zero when I went for a hike besides Piney Creek in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains near Story. There were all kinds of interesting ice formations along the edge of the creek. Delicate frost feathers had formed on top of the clear layers of ice and all the boulders were simply lumps of snow. The water flows fast enough that I didn't see any parts of the creek that were frozen over completely. Standing above snowy trees at the entrance to the canyon is this colorful stained cliff. It doesn't see any sunlight until late afternoon.
    Piney Creek Cliff
  • On October 21st, Northern Wyoming received it's first snowfall of the season that made it down to the valleys. After the storm cleared out overnight, the temperature plummeted. It was about 10°F up here at 6500 feet in the Bighorn Mountains. I made it to one of my favorite views, the Sand Turn Overlook just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. I was glad to find this tree still showing it's fall foliage, illustrating the clash of two seasons.
    Winter in October
  • Once you are in the middle of the Nachusa Grasslands, the views are expansive making the place feel much bigger than it is. On the top of the rolling hills are outcrops made of St. Peter Sandstone.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: July 10, 2014
    Sandstone Prairie
  • Early on the morning of February 19th, the northern lights made an appearance in Central Illinois. It happened to be one of the few winter nights that was clear and not bitterly cold. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, and the barn was illuminated by a quarter moon. I waited around for many hours, but the aurora was only bright for about 10 minutes. That is how it often happens with mid-latitude auroras.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: February 19, 2014
    Barn and Pillars
  • Even though I love thunderstorms, I was hoping for a clear sky to photograph the milky way since I was only in the Badlands one night. At 10 pm it didn't seem like it was going to happen so I returned to my campsite in Wall. But just before going to sleep at midnight I looked up and could see stars. So I drove the 20 minutes back to the overlook and saw this. Badlands National Park is one of the best places you can go for dark skies with very little light pollution. Although it wasn't very well defined, green airglow is visible in this shot. Even a very small town can have lights that reflect on the clouds and that is what the orange spots are.
    The Clearing
  • On the northwest side of the Bighorn Mountains are at least 6 named waterfalls. Some of these waterfalls are an easy hike. Crystal Creek Falls however was not. Located near the top of a valley at 8,000 feet, it's not the distance that made it hard to reach. There is no trail here, and the waterfall is surrounded by cliffs and steep terrain, dense forest, thorns, and large amounts of deadfall. While not as bad as many other areas, pine beetle damage was evident around here as well. Despite the scenic views, by the time I got back I vowed to never go this way again. The terrain and climate in this area varies significantly in a very short distance. About 35 inches of rain falls annually at this elevation, but the dry basin just 10 miles to the west sees only 1/5 of that amount.
    Crystal Creek Falls
  • One of my goals this summer was to capture a lightning storm from the Bighorn Mountains. But it’s not easy since by the time a storm pops up it may be too late to get to the right spot. And once I’m in the mountains, lack of cell data makes it hard to know what’s happening with the weather. But storms weren’t even expected on this night. I was camping near an overlook called Freeze Out Point. At 11PM I went up to the overlook one last time and was surprised to see flashes to the east. The cell was some 75 miles away in Montana, and at that distance lightning often appears red as it’s seen through the thicker lower atmosphere. Distant lightning strikes that are silent and without thunder are often called heat lightning. But heat lightning isn’t really a specific type, thunder simply can’t be heard from more than 10 miles away. There was just enough time to shoot a time lapse of this moonlit lightning storm before low clouds and fog came in and obscured the view.
    75 Mile Strike
  • In December I spent a few days exploring Joshua Tree National Park. Compared to the hustle and bustle of most of Southern California this desert park is roomy, quiet, and peaceful. Even though I grew up fairly close, this was only my second time visiting. A mile above sea level in the Little San Bernardino Mountains, Keys View is one of the best viewpoints in the park and a great place to watch the sunset. A hidden trail leads up to Inspiration Point where this was taken. Far below on the floor of the Coachella Valley the infamous San Andreas Fault is visible. Over 10,000 feet above that is the snowcapped San Jacinto Peak. Few mountains in the US have a steeper rise. Higher still is San Gorgonio Mountain on the far right, which is the very top of Southern California at 11,500 feet.
    Overlooking Coachella Valley
  • This was the view above Mistymoon Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness on Friday night. After hiking past this spot on the first day of my backpacking trip, I knew I would have to pitch my tent here the second night. When storms rolled through around 6:30, I was beginning to doubt if there would be a good sunset. But then the sun broke through in the west. First the sunlight painted the lower slopes of Bomber Mountain a salmon hue, but then the colors intensified further. There's something magical about a sunset at 10,000 feet. The mountain got it's name after a B-17 bomber crashed there during World War II. The crash site wasn't found until after the war and the wreckage still remains today.
    Mistymoon Panorama
  • This dawn marked the end of a very long night backpacking in Shenandoah National Park. Between chasing away pesky mice and having very strong winds topple my tent on me, I got very little sleep. I just hoped the sunrise would be worth it. It was. For about 30 minutes preceding sunrise I couldn't see more than 10 yards as Mary's Rock was trapped in a thick fog. But then the sun broke through. It was a struggle to keep myself and my tripod steady as the winds continued to gust. Clouds would race up the western slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But once they reached the eastern side, the clouds would slow down and hardly move at all because the winds were calmer. Often times I would compose a picture, set my exposure, and then the opportunity would be gone as conditions changed by the second. This was my favorite picture from the morning. Mary's Rock is a 3,514 foot tall mountain above Thornton Gap near Luray, Virginia.
    Between Heaven and Earth
  • Not every lunar eclipse is the same. Each one varies depending on which part of Earth’s shadow (called the umbra) that the moon passes through. Atmospheric conditions on Earth also influence the view. Lingering exhaust from the massive volcanic eruption in Tonga in January helped make this eclipse darker and redder than usual. In Wyoming, totality started during twilight. The extra light revealed more details in the landscape. Then after twilight ended, thousands of stars came out, along with stripes of green airglow. A dark sky and a full moon, normally enemies of each other, were seen together for just a few minutes before normal moonlight returned.<br />
While the lower slopes of the Bighorn Mountains are now a vibrant green, up here at Powder River Pass, winter is still hanging on. Nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, temperatures still drop below freezing at night even in mid-May.
    Blood Moon In A Dark Sky
  • The core of the milky way galaxy was shining brilliantly as it set behind the Bighorn Mountains. This is a 2-image composite, with a 10 minute tracked exposure of the sky, and then another for the foreground.
    Core Over the Bighorns
  • Crater Lake is a beautiful lake found at 10,300' in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Reaching it requires a steep off-trail climb. I found it interesting how the color of the lake turned to emerald but only from this viewpoint. It must have had something to do with the height and angle of the sun.
    Emerald Water
  • In the northwest corner of Washington state is one of the wettest places in the US. Up to 10 feet of rain falls here annually, which creates a lush rain forest. The dense canopy blocks out the sun, and the forest floor is covered with moss and ferns. When the massive trees do fall, many of the logs end up in rivers and are carried out to sea, where they become piled up along the beaches. Marymere Falls is a 90 foot high waterfall found not far from the shore of Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. This hot August day was the perfect time to photograph the rain forest, since thick wildfire smoke was blocking out all of the big views.
    Falls and Ferns
  • It was a beautiful time of year in southern California. After an unusually wet winter, the hills are verdant, the mountains are snowcapped, and wildflowers are abundant. Chino Hills State Park is one of my favorite places to hike in the area. Even though it's surrounded by millions of people, its surprisingly quiet and uncrowded. Of course the main reason I only saw 2 other people here was probably because this particular trail (Scully Ridge) was severely overgrown. At times I was hiking through a tunnel of brush 10 feet high, which covered me in pollen. But I made it to this viewpoint just in time to catch the last wispy colors of sunset over Mount Baldy to the north. Even though I didn't capture the more popular poppy blooms this year, these golden wildflowers are almost as nice.
    Verdant Hills and Sunset
  • This was the last line of thunderstorms on the other side of the cold front. The lightning was almost non-stop. I shot it next to the North Platte River not far from I-80. This is a stack of 10 shots.
    Strobe Lightning
  • After watching the northern lights for hours, I finally went to sleep at 3AM. Just 3 hours later I awoke to this view. It doesn’t get much better. I knew this was a risky spot to camp near the top of the Judith Mountains in Central Montana. If a storm popped up it was very exposed to wind, rain, and lightning. There was only a 20% chance of storms, but this was the lucky day out of 5. Rainbows are always biggest (84° wide) when the sun is at the horizon. The rainbow and amazing sunrise only lasted about 10 minutes. After this I hastily packed up my tent and took shelter in my car as a 2nd thunderstorm threatened behind this one. There’s a reason the Air Force built an early warning radar station on this mountaintop during the Cold War. The views out over the plains seem to go on forever, no matter which direction you look. This small but scenic mountain range north of Lewistown also contains gold deposits and two ghost towns. Even though I was still tired, I couldn’t complain. Rarely are the most memorable days the ones in which I get plenty of sleep.
    Sunrise Rainbow
  • After shooting the milky way over Square Butte, I drove back south to shoot the aurora. It wasn't as active as the night before, but there was a short flare-up at 10:40PM.
    Short Substorm
  • The solar eclipse was absolutely incredible. There's no way to capture it in 1 picture or 1,000 pictures and there's nothing really to compare it to. During the minutes surrounding totality the light changed so fast and there was so much to observe and photograph that it was overwhelming. It felt like time stood still and yet it was all over in an instant. I listened to the dozens of people around me who also climbed the 10,276' Laramie Peak to observe this eclipse. Cheering and exclamations of "WOW" were an almost involuntary reaction.<br />
<br />
This is a composite showing 3 partial phases of the eclipse with a solar filter, as well as 3 of the features that are visible during totality. A group of sunspots was visible before being hidden by the moon. The red fringes on the left are solar prominences. Bigger than any planet, prominences are made up of dynamic loops of hot plasma and will often explode. This outer atmosphere of the sun is sculpted by it's magnetic field. The temperature of the corona is up to 450 times hotter than the surface of the sun and no one knows why. At the top right is an effect known as the "diamond ring." It is the moment the first bit of sun emerges from behind the moon. I was surprised by just how suddenly it popped out, with all the brightness of the sun concentrated into a single point.
    Multifaceted Eclipse
  • Lake Angeline is an alpine lake located 10,500 feet high in the Bighorn Mountains. There is a small permanent snowfield located at the end of the cold lake.
    Lake Angeline
  • This unnamed creek flowed right past my campsite at 10,000 feet in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Golden sunlight filled the valley before a thunderstorm approached.
    Bomber Mountain Creek
  • This was the view above Mistymoon Lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness on Friday night. After hiking past this spot on the first day of my backpacking trip, I knew I would have to pitch my tent here the second night. When storms rolled through around 6:30, I was beginning to doubt if there would be a good sunset. But then the sun broke through in the west. First the sunlight painted the lower slopes of Bomber Mountain a salmon hue, but then the colors intensified further. There's something magical about a sunset at 10,000 feet. The mountain got it's name after a B-17 bomber crashed there during World War II. The crash site wasn't found until after the war and the wreckage still remains today.
    Mistymoon Sunset
  • After pitching my tent and eating dinner, I watched this thunderstorm roll into the Bighorn Mountains. There's always something special about a sunset at 10,000 feet.
    Paint Rock Valley Sunset
  • The 5 inches of snow that fell this week was extremely dry and lightweight. This allowed the gusty winds that accompanied the arctic front to lift up the snow and carve it into drifts and strange patterns. In some places, the ice at Spring Lake was left bare. Despite the warm colors, the wind chill was -10°F as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.<br />
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Date Taken: January 9, 2015
    Spring Lake Sunset
  • The waterfall in Ottawa Canyon had frozen halfway to the ground on this cold 10 degree day. An ultrawide 10mm lens gave a unique perspective looking up from the end of the canyon.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: January 6, 2015
    Halfway There
  • After trekking for 10 miles into the wilderness of Abisko National Park in Swedish Lapland, I was relieved to reach my destination. The last couple miles were the toughest, crossing a frozen lake fully exposed to the wind. My face was getting numb and the last of my water was now a block of ice. After warming up a bit I went back out to capture the mountain Kieron glowing in the evening sunlight. High peaks surround this scenic valley in the Scandinavian Mountains. The vegetation at the edge of tree line mostly consists of short birches, with everything else buried under a meter of snow. This was the first segment of the Kungsleden, a popular 270 mile long hiking and skiing trail. Ski season doesn’t start until the 2nd half of winter, the first half is much too dark. Mountain cabins are spaced about a day’s journey apart. They lack electricity or running water. But chopping firewood and collecting water from a hole cut in the ice keeps guests busy. The facilities included a small store, caretaker’s cabin, bunkhouse, and of course a sauna.
    Birches and Kieron
  • I went back and had another go at processing my solar eclipse pictures. Here I combined several shots and tried to show every feature of the eclipse that I was able to capture. There is such a huge range of light that it's impossible to capture it all in one image. The glow around the sun is called the corona. Shaped by complex magnetic fields, it consists of super-heated plasma up to 450X hotter than the solar surface. The sun's north pole is located at 10 o'clock where the magnetic field lines are shorter. The red fringes on the right are fiery solar prominences, several times the size of Earth. Also shown is the diamond ring effect, when the first bright sliver of sunlight reappears from behind the moon. Details on the lunar surface can be seen because of an effect called earthshine (not to be confused with moonshine). Sunlight is reflected off of the Earth and faintly illuminates the dark side of the moon. Regulus is the star visible on the lower left.
    Eclipse All In One
  • It was 1AM when my alarm went off. Between shooting the sunset, the stars, and the sunrise, I wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight. After slipping into my shoes that were still damp from trudging through the snow, I stepped out of my tent into the cold air. With the temperature near freezing and a strong breeze blowing, it certainly didn't feel like the first day of July. But the weather couldn't be more perfect for shooting the milky way galaxy. The moon was setting in the west, leaving me 2 hours of darkness to shoot a time lapse before morning twilight set in. This is a shot I've wanted to take since last year when I first heard about this spot. It's an alpine meadow called Highland Park set at the base of the 13,000' Blacktooth Mountain in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. I've tried shooting the milky way over these peaks before, but they were always too far away, I had to get closer. But the conditions needed to be perfect before I made the 18 mile trek. Between the snow levels, moon phase, position of the milky way, and weather conditions I knew I may only have a couple chances to get this shot. The atmosphere is a lot thinner at 10,000 feet and the stars seemed just a little bit closer on this night.
    Close to Heaven
  • Above the 10,000 feet level in the Panamint Range grows one of the oldest organisms on earth. Some of the bristlecone pines here in California's Death Valley National Park are estimated to be 3,000 years old. Even hundreds of years after dying, these tough trees remain standing, like ancient sentinels watching over the Mojave Desert miles below. The views from Telescope Peak seem to go on forever, which is how it got it's name. Nowhere else can you see both the lowest point in the western hemisphere (Badwater Basin) and the highest point in the continental US (Mount Whitney). The quarter moon helped to light up the trail as I hiked the 8 miles back after watching the sunset from the summit.
    Ancient Sentinel
  • In mid-September I went backpacking at Crystal Lake. This small lake is located at the edge of treeline at nearly 10,000 feet in the Bighorn Mountains. It was a chilly night with frost forming on my tent immediately after sunset. But soon after that the full moon began to rise out of sight to the east, illuminating the peaks to the west. Across the lake a waterfall tumbled down the cliffs and an early snow lingered above a rockfall of massive boulders. I left my wider lens behind, so I had to shoot a panorama to capture everything.
    Crystal Clear
  • I chased a few thunderstorms that rolled off of the mountains in the afternoon. It was good rainbow weather, but they can't form in the middle of the day. Since the radius of a rainbow is always 42° and the center is directly opposite the sun (antisolar point), the sun must be at an altitude less than 42°. Around 5PM, the sun sank to 32° and this low rainbow appeared about 10° above the horizon. I stopped at this wetland and was able to cover my camera from the rain and capture a time lapse clip that I've tried many times to get. The extra colors (green, purple, green) at the bottom of the bow are called supernumeraries. It's a rare effect that happens when the raindrops are a specific diameter and mostly uniform in size. This complex light interference can't be explained by geometric optics. In fact, supernumerary rainbows played a part in the early 1800's in confirming that light is a wave, and not just made up of particles as previously thought.
    Supernumerary Rainbow
  • The Beartooth Highway is a 68 mile long road that starts in Red Lodge, Montana, and ends at the northeast entrance to Yellowstone. The steep, winding highway reaches elevations above 10,000 feet and is known for getting snow anytime of the year. Snow drifts up to 40 feet high were encountered earlier in the day. This shot was taken at 11PM when the moon was illuminating Pilot and Index Peaks. Resembling the Matterhorn in the Alps, Pilot Peak can be seen near the end of the highway outside of Cooke City. The twin stars of Gemini as well as the Beehive star cluster were setting behind the two peaks.
    Twin Peaks
  • The 10,915 feet high Emigrant Peak can be seen from the Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone.
    Emigrant Peak
  • On this January night the moon was 3 days past full which means it didn't rise until 3 hours after sunset. When the moon crested the horizon it was dim and orange, for the same reason that the sun is orange when it first rises. Because earth's atmosphere is thicker at the horizon, it absorbs blue wavelengths of light and lets warmer colors shine through. This view is from the mountains west of Sheridan, whose lights can be seen glowing on the left. This entire mountainside along Red Grade Road burned in a wildfire nearly 10 years ago. But even dead trees can look photogenic in the right light.
    Moment of Moonrise
  • The San Gabriel Mountains tower 10,000 feet above Los Angeles. This is the view from just below the summit of Mount Baldy. Normally in February deep snow would cover the peaks. But warm temperatures and a drought meant only a small amount of snow remained on north-facing slopes. Down in the valley the blue skies were obscured by smog. But up here the air was clear and clean. This was a challenging 11 mile hike but the views were well worth it.
    Above the Desert
  • Snow begins to drop from tree branches as the sun climbs higher in the sky. It was still only about 10 degrees though.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: February 2, 2015
    Sunlit
  • I went on a longer hike than expected in the Bear Lodge Mountains, about 10 miles. But I didn't want to stop until I found this view, looking down into Sundance. Sundance Mountain is the closer peak with Inyan Kara Mountain on the far right.
    Overlooking Sundance
  • Cloud Cap Summit on the north side of Mount Hood was my last stop on my 10 day road trip through the Pacific Northwest. The skies up here at 6,000 feet were exceptionally clear. The thick smoke that had been present for my whole trip finally settled into the valleys. After sunset the moonlight looked amazing on the glaciers. Jupiter was nearly touching the top of the mountain.
    Twilight On Mount Hood
  • In December of 2018 Comet 46P/Wirtanen flew by the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus. Also known as the Seven Sisters, this star cluster is one of the closest to Earth at a distance of about 444 light years away. The extra hot and luminous stars cast their light on the nearby reflection nebula, which gives it the blue color. Comet 46P/Wirtanen was at it's closest approach just 7.2 million miles (11.5 million km) away from Earth. This makes it one of the top 10 closest comet encounters of the Space Age. While they look the same size in this image, the comet is quite a bit fainter, just barely detectable to the naked eye. The nucleus of the comet is less than 1 mile wide, but it's diffuse coma (cometary atmosphere) is larger than the planet Jupiter.
    The Flyby
  • In a cirque at 10,000 feet in the Cloud Peak Wilderness during the middle of summer, it's pretty much paradise. There are no trails here, visitors must navigate their own route on steep boulder fields. Not knowing exactly what to expect is what makes it an adventure. At this elevation it never gets hot and some snowfields stay year round. Waterfalls and wildflowers abound under towering granite walls. 9 named lakes fill this high valley, plus countless unnamed tarns like this one. Each lake is different. One of them was still partially frozen, another had islands, and one a sandy beach perfect for swimming. It's the only place I've ever caught a fish with my bare hands. This was the easiest of the 3 creeks I waded through that day. The puffy cumulus clouds were a precursor to the thunderstorms that pop up most summer afternoons. Up here above treeline it's very exposed to the weather. I made it down to the protection of the forest before the first rumbles of thunder, but didn't escape getting rained on.
    Frozen Lake Falls
  • Laramie Peak is the first mountain I saw when I moved to Wyoming and ever since then I've wanted to climb it. The views were amazing from the 10,276' summit, with 4 different states visible. It was mostly cloudy while I was up there, but the clouds began to break before I left at noon.
    Laramie Peak West
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Under Jupiter
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Lightning and Moonbeams
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    The Hills Are Electric
  • On this evening I headed up into the hills to watch lightning. The first storm that made me head out the door wasn't any good for pictures, since most of the lightning was intra-cloud. But then I watched another cell pop up to my south. As this updraft exploded into the starry sky, it started producing positive lightning strikes. Positive lightning accounts for 5-10% of all lightning, and is up to 10X more powerful than negative strikes with a peak discharge of 1 billion volts. It originates from the top of a thundercloud and travels through miles of air before striking the ground. Positive bolts can hit up to 25 miles away from the parent thunderstorm. These "bolts from the blue" are especially dangerous because people may assume they're a safe distance away from the storm when they strike.<br />
The night couldn't have been more perfect for watching lightning.A full moon helped to light up the landscape and gave the thundercloud a silver lining. I stayed in the same spot for hours as multiple storms followed the same path.
    Moon Behind the Anvil