Baby Waves Today

I had some fun today shooting a few friends that are in town for a couple weeks.  It was a small day at Sandys today.

Eddy Williamson got a few good ones...

Francis Elizondo got shacked on another small one.

James Chong trying to make it happen.

One more of Eddy.

My favorite place to be

Now that I'm home from the road, it's been nice getting back in the water and shooting some of my favorite people.

Noah Myers getting a little shack.

John Nickens getting shacked too!

Long days on the road...

Chicago with the McSharmas

Harwich, Cape Cod, MA

Rhode Island with Eric Mao

Assateague National Park and North Carolina with the fam!

Floating down Weeki Watchee Springs in Florida

Mesa Verde and Great Sand Dunes

Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado is both a National Park and a World Heritage Site.  It was the first National Park we visited that was focused specifically around a peoples impact on the land.  It is the site of a great Ancestral Puebloan city and the largest archaeological preserve in the US.

Above is a photo of the inside of the Sun Temple.  Jim and I were alarmed when we visited this site because it has absolutely no doors.  The Sun Temple is thought to have been an astronomical observatory.  Its architecture is aligned to the lunar standstill (only occuring every 18.6 years) and the sunset during the winter solstice.

Square Tower

Although this photo of square tower was taken from above, it sits on top of a much larger canyon.  So the Ancestral Puebloans had do be some crazy rock climbers to either climb up or down to this settlement after farming or hunting for the day.

Cliff palace

Nearby Mesa Verde is the Great Sand Dunes national park. These sand dunes in southern Colorado are the tallest sand dunes in North America. They were formed when large lakes in this area receded and the sand leftover in the lake beds was then blown towards the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. 

You can rent sandboards and sleds just outside of the park. It is exhausting climbing up those dunes, but well worth the fast rides down the dunes (although we sure did get sand everywhere!)

The dunes lay inbetween the grasslands and the Sangre de Cristo mountains. 

Yosemite

A friend of ours told us to skip Yosemite because of the crowds, but we are sure glad we didn't take his advice! The scenery in the park is absolutely breathtaking.  Most campsites are fully booked once the online booking opens months before, but if you are flexible on travel dates, people do cancel their reservations so we were able to camp in the park for 3 nights!

Bringing a bike if you are going to camp in the valley is key. Once you set up your camp you can ride along the flat valley floor alongside the river and to and from hiking trails

There are so many accessible waterfalls in the valley

The large waterfalls in the valley meet at the bottom and flow into the Merced river.  Next time I want to bring a raft and float through the valley passing through the sandy beaches and meadows!

Hiking alongside Vernal Falls

We were so close to the falls that we got soaked!

Nevada Falls

Many people choose to stop hiking once they reach Vernal falls, but after another two hours above the lower falls we got to Nevada falls and were able to make our hike a loop trail, meeting up with the beautiful John Muir trail on the way down.