'Round Salt Lake City

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Gilgal Gardens. Why yes, that is Joseph Smith's head on a sphinx.

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Near Mountain Dell Reservoir.

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Pass from Parley's Canyon to Emigrant Canyon.

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Towards Emigrant Canyon.

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Emigrant Canyon. When Brigham Young led the first party of Mormon pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, west, this was the view he saw as he approached what would become their destination. Just a few miles later, he would see the basin, surrounded by mountains and the Great Salt Lake, and he would recognize that it matched the prophecy given to him by Joseph Smith, and he would declare, "This is the place." Today, at the end of the canyon is This Is The Place Park, marking that location. 

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Kennecott Smokestack, the largest free-standing object west of the Mississippi River. Part of a copper smelting plant. Nearby, in the Oquirrh Mountains, is the enormous Bingham Canyon Open-Pit Copper Mine.

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Back of the Cedar Mountains, as seen from I-80. If in Salt Lake City you can sense the presence of God, in Tooele County, to the west, you can sense His absence.

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Bonneville Salt Flats.

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Approaching the Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway.

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This is the Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway.

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Silver Island Mountains, next to the salt flats. The flats are the remains of the large prehistoric Lake Bonneville. Look at the mountain on the right; you can see benching, indicating previous shorelines through history.

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Looking out from the Silver Island Mountains, towards the salt flats.

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The view from Cottonwood Heights towards the Oquirrh Mountains, near Salt Lake City.

'Round Philly

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Parken Verboten!







Horsey!

Waverly St.



Philadelphian Gothic

My block

Smedley St.

Whippin' Up a Storm

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Last time, I talked about how the light of the late day usually makes for a more interesting picture. Weather also plays a good role. If you're hiking or biking, as I was (and also was when taking these pictures), it's a bit more of a risk. One advantage to these mountainous areas is you're able to see very long distances, and can sometimes see the storm coming. Storms can certainly catch you by surprise though, as one did to my hosts, who attempted to climb Teewinot Mountain, before being forced to turn around due to lightning and all around gnarly conditions. But a little bit of preparation, including a good look at a Doppler radar, can help. In this case, I knew the storm would be coming in from the west (as they usually do), but would probably miss me to the south. Unfortunately, the south was where my return destination was, so I had to scurry back quickly in order to stay dry.

View of the Hole

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The afternoon I chose to take pictures in Wyoming, I hopped on a bike, and rode to the aerial tram at the ski resort near Jackson. Unfortunately, my timing was off, so I had to pedal hard to make the last trip up the mountain before it closed. I made it just in time. This wasn't really by accident, though, because when you're taking pictures, it's often best to be out early and late in the day, as the sun is beginning to set. This strategy has produced some of my prouder pictures. So the last trip up the mountain is the one to get. It was still a little too early in the day to achieve anything that stunning, but an incoming storm provided a little visual drama.

My Current Desktop

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Today's picture isn't the best I've ever taken, but right now it's my computer's desktop image. I chose this picture for my desktop for specific reasons. Instead of taking a picture of the whole mountain (along with sky and surroundings), this picture captures just a piece of it. Since you're only seeing a piece of the whole scene, it's like you're looking through a window, and you have to extrapolate the rest of the mountain in your imagination. This, I think, makes the mountain seem bigger than it would it look if you saw the whole thing (which is a measly 10,000 feet high). The computer desktop really enhances the "window" effect (no pun intended).

This is, by the way, the view from Rendezvous Mountain, in the Teton Range near Jackson, Wyoming.

Welcome to Wyoming

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This summer, I visited my friend Caroline, who's smart enough to live in one of the more amazing places on this planet, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I've been out west before, and I've seen mountains, but these... these were mountains. The trip was fun; I went camping for the first time, and got to experience some local flavor (such as eating breakfast while watching a guy my age try out his new rifle, while describing how he used an ax he found to chop off the antlers from an elk). Surprisingly, though, it was a difficult trip, photographically. One of the most amazing photos I've ever seen is this picture by Ansel Adams, which pretty much sums up the stunning beauty of the region. The problem is, with pictures like that out there, how can I compete? I decided I wouldn't try, and that I would just enjoy the trip. The pictures I'll be showing over the next week all come from the one afternoon that I took my camera with me.

Big Mountain, Little Mounds

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Hikers use cairns to mark their paths. Together, they look otherworldly.

Alright, done with rocks, done with Mount Washington. Next time, moving to mountains somewhere else.