Red Rock Canyon - Nevada

On our recent trip to Las Vegas area, we visited Red Rock Canyon on two separate days. The first time we just drove through the 13 miles of scenic loop to stop at various parking lots and take pictures. We entered the park at 3:30 and had 90 minutes to leave the park. The sun was also setting there quite early. 

The second time we went there at 9 AM and did two hikes with mixed results.

Lightroom is installed and functional now on my Macmini but have not figured out quick ways to do HDR there. Continuing to process HDR photos with Photoshop CS5 (see below). Take 3 bracketed shots with one overexposed and one underexposed shot, then merge all three to pick up details in bright and dark areas of the regular photo from the other two. Takes around 4-5 minutes to process the final photo. 

but you get to see the detail in the clouds, the hills and the ground, the way your eyes see it!

You believe in a higher being when you see creation of this scale. Have said it before and will say it again. National parks are the real temples! Anyone can go there and get a glimpse of how miniscule we are in the scheme of things.

Here are a few pictures from the Calico trail. We got lost in this trail because there are no markers and it says "be prepared to get lost unless you have a good sense of direction". So we spent an hour and a half here wandering in the canyons in a zig zag motion. Our landmark was this small pool of water and we kept coming back to it! 

BB suggested the "high road" where we can always see the rock near the parking lot.. but we decided to take the "adventure route" and ended up where we started! We did get to see some awesome rock formations on the zig zag path.

Some photos are linked to a previous post here..

This is what you see when you are in the canyons.. Red Rocks everywhere. Occasionally you see a person with a blue jacket popping up between those crevices.. Otherwise you are easily lost!

Finally we went on the Lost creek Trail. The temperature was below freezing in that trail and again there were not that many markers, but we had another group ahead of us who knew the path. We followed them and were not disappointed. The trail ends in a closed canyon where water falls from the top. It was more of a trickle than a fall. A tree that had chosen that spot to grow (given it was the only place the water fell) had become frozen with icicles.. the falling water forms icicles everywhere. 

The ground was glistening with perfect ice nodules that looked like diamonds. The path to the falls was slippery as the ground had a sheet of hidden ice below it.

We spent a good 30 minutes there taking pictures and made our way back to the hotel for lunch.

It was a good morning spent hiking. If you are in the Vegas area and want to spend a good half day or day hiking through some amazing scenery, strongly recommend the Red Rock Scenic loop. It is one hour away from Vegas and it offers a perfect contrast to the smoke filled casinos!

Talk of getting your lungs back to normal again!

Something tells me that we might visit this place again in a few years...

Wrapping up 2014

2014 has been the year of travel!

Have travelled 190000 miles in the last year but mostly for work. Someday I will travel that for the sake of visiting places, experiencing things and getting to write about the experience.

To wrap things up, we visited Las Vegas over the Christmas break for three days with the cousins.

As usual, we crammed a lot of activities in that short a time. 

Saw wonders.. that were Natural

and Man made ...

While the Red Rock Canyon looked like a prime candidate for another Interstellar shoot and showed us millions of years of work done by nature, the Hoover dam puts things in perspective of how man can indeed move mountains in a few years! 

The last picture is kind of a cross between a man made and natural thing. It is Lake Mead. The largest man made lake created by the Hoover dam blocking the Colorado river. The colors in the rocks above the lake are natural and local to the area!

If the USA could do something like this 80 years ago, it is definitely possible to do a project of this size even today! We need another Hoover to get something like this done!

We also saw another type of man made wonder.. The casinos! The kids were wide eyed after walking into the Venetian and it just kept getting better after that.

Then there was some nice food, an unforgettable Magic Show called the Illusions, a visit to see some exotic marine animals in the Shark Reef, etc. etc.

In the middle of all this I managed to watch my High schools 25th reunion on a live feed late at night from the hotel room. 

We just came back from a looooong all day drive! Time to catch some sleep and start editing pictures tomorrow.. 

2014... so far, so good!

Yosemite National Park - Photoblog

We went to Yosemite with the cousins for Thanksgiving. Finally got to edit the "non- people" photos from the trip.

A long trail to "mirror lake" which turned out to be a dry bed with no water! The board said "mirror lake is a misnomer. it is not a lake"

It is a photographers job to make do with whatever water comes our way while on a trail that promised "lake".. so started shooting reflections of the mountains on any and every large puddle.  So here is a series of photos from the puddle shoot. They are all reflections from small puddles.

Then it was time to see the "lake".. 

the views from this dry bed were fantastic. We had a lone buck grazing there..

We walked by a creek on the way back and I got to photograph anything that caught my eye..

from moss to mushrooms..

For once, a reflection from a creek instead of a puddle..

There must be a lot more water there now after the heavy rains from last week.. but it was a good thing we went during Thanksgiving break. Parking was easy to find, less crowded and the trails were not slippery. That helped us with the climb all the way to Nevada falls on the second day. We spent 6 hours on the trail and my legs were wobbling after the fast descent. Should have paced myself. In trying to catch up with the group after taking pictures, did some bad moves and it took a toll on my knees.

We caught both Vernal and Nevada falls. Vernal falls had a lot more water on our last visit. Still it was a pretty sight. 

On the way to our cabins we stopped by the Swinging bridge. There was some water, lots of clouds and the sunset turned the coulds bright red. It was an unforgettable drive but there are no pictures of the sunset. The legs were trembling and it was time to go drink tea in the cabins!

On the third day we visited two trails while heading out of Yosemite. One was the trail for a Carson falls and the other was Rainbow Push. They were both within 15 miles of the west entrance. It started raining heavily and we had to rush through both these trails. It was a vibrant early morning..

Even HDR images do not match what the eyes saw that morning. 

We made it back through pouring rain. It was a great experience to stay in Yosemite for a couple of nights and spend more time in the park. Our earlier trips have all been day trips with one 2-3 hour hike at the most. 

The cabins at Yosemite lake are strongly recommended. Nice, cozy and a decent kitchen. 

The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing board games and the whole cozy cabin experience!

A big thanks to all those who support the National park system!