“Surprising Beauty”

I guess I had seen photos of this place before I went there and must have dismissed them because they looked fake. And much like I wasn’t expecting the desert in Joshua Tree National Park to be so full of life, I really wasn’t expecting this place to be so colorful. After all, they only have a few months here when it is not covered in snow.

Turns out, the best picture I have of this place (until I get some panorama stitching and HDR software) just so happens to have me in it. So while I did edit some of the dullness out of the photo from the partly cloudy skies, I’m lucky to be able to say it really did look much like this.

About the photo:
This was taken from Eielson Visitors Center in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. To get here, one has to either get the very rare permit to drive in, bike or hike, or like we and most people did, endure a 66 mile ride (one way) to the Center in a school bus on a nearly all gravel road. But while we ended up riding 170 miles in 13 hours in the bus this day, the sights were so incredible that I really did forget I was in a school bus.

June 10, 2010
In celebration of National Parks week

[Click pic to fit to screen]

Related Images: