Portfolio

Perseid Dawn
Seen through the windshield, first shooting star is precipitous, unbelievable. It appears at the hazy edge of vision and even before my eyes in reflex dart to see it it's gone. It is a thing of transcendental frailty, like an orb of dense magic, or a grain of sand in some stellar hourglass. And so come the rest, plummeting now through the atmosphere in Jupiterian rhythm, the weight of their celestial histories burning up behind them. Flowing eons in the comet's cosmic stream ended now (for now) by the deep graviton tides of orbiting Earth, strange new home.

How long is a moment?
What is impermanence?
Look northeast on a late summer night.
In the trail of a falling star it's all laid bare.

moonless forest
dark flowers, above
comet's silent stream

One-lane road, headlit tunnel through trees, til trailhead. Sweating in the torchlight, more climb than hike through firs, canopy only known by the starlight shapes left uncovered by needly boughs. Suddenly whole expanse of nighttime sound is laid out before me, twinkling electronic moonlight metropolis. But trail kept up. Make peak as the first predawn orange swell silhouettes Rainier. Not long til Cascade sunlight crests radiant. Day.

//Sunrise over Mt. Washington seen from Mt. Ellinor in the Mt. Skokomish Wilderness, Olympic Mountains.
Summer adventure blue cool dawn mountains nature northwest olympic orange pacific sunrise sunstar washington wilderness
From Pacific Northwest
The Crystal-Lidded Eyes of Heaven
Standing on top of a mountain is an exercise in imagining infinity. You're confronted with not just the expanse of the earth around you but the intricacy of its detail. You can look down and see dozens of rocks, each different in its shape, texture, composition, and in a billion other ways that you can't detect. You can see that each blade of grass, each patch of moss is the same way. You then see how that's not just around your feet, it's in every direction as far as your vision holds out. And in that moment you experience the radical variety, the boundless wonder of the earth, the universe, existence. It exceeds your brain's capacity to process, your mind's ability to comprehend. You're completely overwhelmed and, of course, you've never been happier.

//Predawn in the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado
Colorado Steamboat adventure fall mountains nature public land rocky mountains wilderness
From Colorado
Mighty Patient
Mt. Cruiser before dawn on an August Morning, with clear views to the heavily-glaciated Mt. Olympus looming in the distance.
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From Pacific Northwest
The Cadence of Light
Sneffels Range, Colorado // Morning light falls in one direction and a billion ways over Mt. Sneffels and its foothills in the San Juan Mountains.
Colorado fall nature
From Colorado
(UN)WASTE(D)LAND
Big Bend protects a desert landscape that tends to be described with terms like: barren, waste, wasteland, a-whole-lot-of-nothing. In our first twenty-four hours in the park, we met: a bobcat, a ground-owl, jackrabbits, raccoon, bluebirds, mice, bumble bees, two bear, countless deer; sotol & yucca with flowers ten feet tall, cholla, ocotillo, mesquite, juniper. In the free fenceless desert, life overflowed. There is no such thing as a waste land! (John Locke be damned!) Every living thing we saw was thriving exactly where it was. The desert is not a place where life evaporates before the pale sandy face of death, in some horrible death-sunshine, it's where "life on earth" shows its true extent: The Whole Earth.

The world isn't empty, it's full!

//South Rim, Big Bend National Park, Texas
Texas big bend chihuahua desert fall landscape national park orange park public land rocks southwest sunrise
From The West & Texas
Alpine Shrine
The Zodiac, Eagles Nest Wilderness, Colorado // The most spiritual places on earth were not made by any hands, they were here before we were.
Colorado Steamboat adventure fall gore range mountains nature public land rocky mountains wilderness
From Colorado
Three Halves
North Routt County, Colorado // Being alive is a lot like being an improper fraction. Here we are, these little gangly amalgams of atoms, molecules, cells--systems layered on each other in time and space. Automatons perpetuating themselves, only separated from the rest of the physical universe by our superficially unusual skill at self-replication. This much is objective. But somewhere in those systems, those layers, some cosmic accident gave us the ability to ignore all of that, to be subjective. We have the unique power of ignorance, of being unable to comprehend the whole of reality, of projecting our hopes and fears and imaginations onto the thematically blank canvas around us, to see not less but more than there is, more than the sum of physical parts, to experience beauty, to experience anything at all.

We humans, nature's honor-roll idiots, faced with the whole 1 of creation, see 3/2.

At least, in my opinion.
Colorado Routt Steamboat aspens blue fall national forest nature orange public land rocky mountains trees
From Colorado
Heart's Cradle of the Chisos Mountains
Big Bend National Park, Texas

/ From my notebook, resting on this 2000-foot cliff in the early morning light:

Boundless nighttime unity stretches in all directions, to Mexico and on, a whole hemisphere of darkness. Stars twinkle meekly through hazy desert cloud.A moment, and the fullness of night emerges from the false headlamp darkness, detail-rich even with this sliver moon. Not long, and the winter sun rises from Mexican peaks. Shadows stretch and shrink, deep hard-edged pools of night, hiding in valley and forest, waiting for the planetary turning to return their mother, shadow-full Mother Night, from the other side.

The high-walled Chisos Basin is the cradle of the park, of the impossible, desert-defying variety of life that lives there, of the morning shadows and evening shadows, of the heart of anyone who visits there, and to the mind of that visitor, of all things.
Texas big bend chisos desert fall landscape mountains national park park pink public land red rocks southwest sunrise
From The West & Texas
What There Is, Is Ecstasy
Willow Lakes, Eagles Nest Wilderness, Colorado // "Here, this, is It. The world as it is, is Heaven, I'm looking for a Heaven outside what there is, it's only this poor pitiful world that's Heaven. Ah, if I could realize, if I could forget myself and devote my meditations to the freeing, the awakening, and the blessedness of all living creatures everywhere I'd realize what there is, is ecstasy." From Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums.
Colorado Steamboat adventure fall gore range mountains nature public land rocky mountains sunset wilderness
From Colorado
Land of the Lost Lakes
Flat Tops Wilderness, Colorado // Our first day of packing in the Flat Tops was a long and grueling haul: our 15-year-old map didn't bother to accurately depict mileage so we ended up walking much farther than we expected, not arriving at our destination lake until nearly sunset. The next morning, thought, it all became worth it. The sun's first rays cut a distinctive line across the cliffs, which themselves towered 700 feet above the marshy plain next to the lake. It all felt mysterious and magical as the light showered slowly down across the valley.
Colorado adventure flat tops mountains nature public land rocky mountains wilderness green red
From Colorado
Winter Weathering
Zion National Park, UT // A mystical icon in the snow. In this view, all of the phases of water- liquid, vapor, and ice- have come together to make a dynamic and mystical landscape. As a side note, "mystical" is one of my favorite words to describe Zion. It's such a wonderful thing that kept such a place protected.
zion national park utah mountains canyon water river winter snow orange white
From The West & Texas
Sunshine on a Cloudy Day
Flat Tops Wilderness, Colorado // Here's one from our rainy hike up to the Devil's Causeway, back in the Flat Tops. The Alpine Sunflowers were going crazy up there, making for a bright contrast to the moody clouds that filled the sky and even surrounded us a few times. On this trip we were bringing along a close friend who'd never been up into the flat tops, and even with the weather her reaction was pretty appropriate: "This is probably the most beautiful place I've ever been."
Colorado Steamboat Summer adventure alpine clouds details flat tops flowers landscape misty mountains nature public land rocky mountains spring storm wilderness yellow
From Colorado
BloodBound
Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana // Violence and valor are not the sole ingredients to lionhood. Our third day in Moremi treated us to an intimate (if public) interaction between two male lions, probably brothers, who had formed a coalition. Due to offroading laws in Moremi we weren't able to follow them long enough to find out whether they had a pride or were just drifters. But we were able to spend about an hour with the duo, following them from when they reunited, across to a watering hole, and finally to a sunny hill where they laid out together for a mid-morning nap, briefly more-or-less cuddling.

My friend made the astute observation-- it was most surprising how little violence we witnessed out on Safari. We seemingly saw a lot more friendly and affectionate interactions than angry, murderous ones. That could easily simply be a sample bias, but I don't know. I think nature might be a little less cruel than many give it credit for.
Okavango animals botswana emotion lion moremi nature safari wildlife
From Botswana
Layers of Place
Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO // A view from south reveals the diverse geology and ecology protected by Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park. Up to 750 feet high and covering 30 square miles of land at the base of the craggy Sange de Cristo range, these dunes are the tallest in North America. Their towering height is obvious when you're out in their heart, where the shifting hills block out everything but sand and sky, and you might as well be in the Sahara or the Rub'al-Khali. Yet despite the fluidity of sand dunes, opposing winds keep them surprisingly stable: the tallest dunes are still in the same places they were 100 years ago.
great sand dunes colorado national park sangre de cristo mountains dunes sunset spring rocky mountains
From Colorado
The Only Thing
Mt. Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado // While spending most a week in a suburban neighborhood housesitting for family and watching TV, I realized that TV is basically just a montage of people not liking things (except for the ads, of course). As an act of defiance, here are some things that I do like: light, and the way it flows over leaves on a cloudy day; the harmonious individuality of every flower, every leaf, every bead of dew; that the same water that creates and maintains all the world's beauty creates and maintains us as well; that we are all part of the world's beauty; that, somewhere, at any given time, flowers are blooming.
Colorado Routt Steamboat Summer Zirkels blue flowers mountains nature public land rocky mountains twilight water wilderness
From Colorado
Twilight Spire
Red Peak, Eagles Nest Wilderness, Colorado // Mountains always have a different character when you get up close. What you lose in towering massive silence you gain in an explosion of detail and variety: jagged peaks revealing themselves as precarious piles of rock, being held up by the magic inevitability of the angle of repose. From a distance it almost seems impossible. How could something so massive, so solid be so complex, so chaotic? How can such obvious order be so illusory? I suppose it's just like human nature to miss the rocks for the mountains.
Colorado Steamboat blue eagles nest fall gore range mountains nature public land red peak rocky mountains summit county twilight wilderness
From Colorado
See Stars (And Go Weak)
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.
glacier national park avalanche creek montana green water lush rocky mountains waterfall
From Pacific Northwest
Potential Energy
Mad Creek, near Steamboat, Colorado // This is Mad Creek, running tirelessly near Steamboat Springs from the peaks we hiked with its eyes firmly on the ocean. It will eventually flow into the Elk river, then into the Yampa, and then the Colorado. This water will go through the Horseshoe Bend and through the Grand Canyon. But by the time it reaches the ocean it will be reduced to just a trickle. And that's why this image is the first one up, because if this trip had a theme it was water, its beauty and its scarcity. The wildfires in Idaho, the lush forests in Washington, the sculptural peaks, crystal lakes, and even dunes all owe their existence to the forces of water on this planet, and that is incredible--and scary, considering how much we are changing things.
national forest public land river long exposure mad creek colorado routt steamboat blue water
From Colorado
Ninth Dream
snow's river's calming,
rocks by the water singing--
July's light blue sky!
Summer green july long exposure mountains national park ninestream northwest olympic pacific public land river washington waterfall
From Pacific Northwest