Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Texas // Up on enchanted rock, low-sun glowlight turns the whole granite expanse into a realm of golden stone and deep dusk-blue crater pools. It's an improbably wonderful mix of colors and feelings that transports you from regular consciousness to some esoteric mind-place where fantasy runs free and everything seems pretty much great. Then the sun goes down, but luckily the world around you just goes back to its regular way of being impossibly beautiful.
Glacier National Park, Montana // Rushing through its slot-like bed, Avalanche Creek is just one of the lush mountain streams that help shape the dramatic, almost unreal geology of Glacier National Park. The creek gets its unique color from the minerals carried in the glacial melt water. Unfortunately, due to globally rising temperatures, the National Park's eponymous glaciers are likely to be gone by 2030.
Lake Anthony, Oregon // On this particular morning I woke up shivering. The previous night, my map's lying nature led me to drive an hour in the dark until I arrived at the Anthony Lake campsite, where I promptly fumbled with the tent until it was up, then slept until the cold rung my body like an alarm clock. With nothing else to do but say "So much for summer," I decided I'd go generate some body heat trying to find the campground's namesake lake. By the time I got back to camp, the frigid air had my forgiveness. That said, I do not want to be around here in a few billion years when the sun cools.
