Typically, when you think of the Palouse, you think of fields of rolling green hills, fields of yellow canola, and freshly plowed earth. You think of graphic landscapes full of curves and lines, you don’t think of fall color. But it’s there in October. A little bit in the way you expect to see fall color, but mainly in the beautiful earth tones you’ll see in field after field. The lines and curves are there too, only it all looks so different compared to the spring and early summer.
If you’ve ever visited the Palouse in May or June, visiting in the Fall will be like seeing it again for the first time. The old barns and abandoned houses take on a new look, adding even more to the character and the feel of age these buildings can evoke. In October, harvest is long past and the fields lie in wait for winter. Colors of dry wheat and chocolate spread before you, crisscross patterns embellish the fields, and the contrast between dark and light makes for some striking and dramatic graphics.
If you love to photograph waterfalls, then Silver Falls State Park is one of the best places to do it.
Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park near Salem, OR is a gem of a park that, acre for acre, rivals any national park I’ve visited. Everything is close and easily accessible and for waterfall lovers, hikers, and nature photographers, this combination is unbeatable. And while it’s spectacular year around, Silver Falls in the autumn is not to be missed.
You need to know that there is hiking and walking involved with this trip. Waterfall country, by definition, has some elevation changes. We’ll be hiking downhill and uphill on every trail. The hikes aren’t long, the longest being about one mile each way. We’ll be walking/hiking to all the falls. The lone exception being the roadside viewpoint of North Falls.
To apply some advice that I received several years ago, one hard drive will annoy ya….two are a paranoia. The hard truth is that only three things in life are certain: death, taxes and hard drive failures. They all have finite life spans. No matter how sophisticated your drives may be, given enough use over enough time, they will fail. Not if, but when.
For a place that is not reachable by any road, Glacier Bay National Park, tucked away in the southeastern corner of Alaska, can boast a great deal of popularity. This 5,000 square mile park, as large as any in the contiguous 48 states, gets its name from the long and narrow bay and the rivers of snow and ice that creep along its edges at a glacially slow pace. (Was that a pun? Ouch!)
Alaska is often called “the last frontier” for good reason. The overwhelming majority of our 49th state is still pristine and wild. When traipsing around this wonderful wilderness, I am constantly reminded of the American pioneers of yesteryear such as John Colter and Jedediah Smith, so open is this vast state. It is truly in a class all by itself. Perhaps the prime feature shared by all eight national parks of Alaska (only California has more) is this singularly pristine wildness. These wonderful parks are vast tracts of pure, untamed and untrammeled Nature. Towering volcanoes, sparkling glaciers, crystalline lakes and mega fauna in the wild seem to be everywhere.
A century and a half after being acquired by Secretary of State William Seward from Russia’s Czar Alexander II, “Alyeska” remains remote, sparsely populated and largely roadless. Throughout this immense state, if you want to get around beyond the point where the few roads end, you will likely be using a raft or canoe to navigate the many river drainages or the ever-popular and ubiquitous bush planes for just about everything else.
