Lightning

The beginning of June felt more like October, with rain storms constantly rolling through northern Italy.  I shot these from a bedroom window and from our front yard.

South Lake Tahoe

Chance, Joe, and I spent Mother's Day in South Lake Tahoe with Mom.  Unfortunately, we didn't take any money from the house, but I did get a few shots from the weekend.

Room with a view.

This balloon takes off and lands on the lake.  

I was out shooting in the early morning and not really getting anything good.  Just as I was about to leave, the balloon filled up and drifted right above me.

Disk Golf

Chance and his dog Cleo have been playing a lot of disk golf lately, so we explored a new course in the woods near Lake Tahoe.

Yosemite - Climbing Snake Dike

Chance wanted to climb a classic Yosemite line, so I picked Snake Dike (5.7).  The climb is a great Valley experience and entails 16 miles of hiking and 800 ft of technical climbing.  It's a big day.

Snake Dike ascends the low angle rock to the right of the vertical face.

After a 4 a.m. wakeup, we finally reached the back side of Half Dome and I found perfect reflections in this lake.

Meanwhile, Chance was feeling terrible.  He tried to beat the lightheadedness and shakes with frequent naps in the pine needles, on a rock, or in the sand.  He also ate all our food, which seemed to help.

Pitch 1.

At pitch 3, the route follows an intrusion (dike).  At times, there's no protection for 75 feet, but the climbing is easy and the views are awesome.

Views from the summit

In the high season, the cables are up and wooden planks create stairs up the dome.  But in the off season, we descended the slabs by picking up the cables and bat-manning down.

The Mist Trail - more than just a clever name.

Vernal Fall

This fountain is 7 miles from the top of Half Dome.  Our bottles had been empty for quite a while when we finally got here.  You can see how psyched Chance is to drink some cold water.

Taos and El Rito, NM

I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a month-long training for work.  I was lucky to have Chance stay with me for the whole month, which meant lots of time hiking and climbing in NM.

This opening shot is my first experiment with really long-exposure shots.  On this one, the shutter was open for 25 minutes.  Notice the orange glow on the trees from the campfire.

El Rito, about 2 hours north of Albuquerque, is now on my list of top 5 favorite places to sport climb.

The next 4 shots were taken by Andy Bean.

The all-powerful fire stare.

The Rio Grande Gorge, near Taos.

Retail sales is tough these days.

This "Earthship" building near Taos is made of cans, bottles, and other reused and recycled materials.  

These 100-degree swimming holes are in the Rio Grande Gorge, right next to the river.  

Andy's snake-proof sleeping accommodation.