Category Archives: National Park

September 11, 2021

Star Party. September 2021

After a whole month of staying home, I feel completely stagnant; losing motivation to do work but can’t find enough motivation to change my routine.

The smoke finally cleared this weekend for a chance of Milky Way. With the coast too risky due to the lingering fog bank, we headed south to Pinnacles National Park.

Driving on the highway and looking at distant subjects and framing compositions, I felt a sense of calmness. Hiking through the chaparral, hearing the crickets chirp, feeling the warm breeze, and seeing sunset colors made me appreciate again what the great outdoors has to offer. 

As we were waiting the moon to set, we met other star gazers in the parking lot. A special thank you to Jim and Alex for letting us peer into their telescope setups. I saw the rings of Saturn, Jupiter and its orbiting moons, M22, and other star clusters. I felt like I was five years old again, peering through a telescope in my backyard at the moon and realizing how much I love astronomy.

I’m reminded again that inspiration is out there if you just go. 

July 25, 2021 Risk It

Last year, I had to cancel my trip to Butte Lake due to wildfires. I re-booked it again for this September but the outlook for wildfires is not looking good this year either unfortunately, with several large fires already happening. A campsite opened up last week so I thought I would go this weekend in case I had to call off my September trip, again. 

Well, even the early bird may not get the worm. The AQI on airnow.gov showed ‘unhealthy’ for today. The forecast looked to improve but judging by the webcams, it was going to be smoky. Was it going to be completely smoked out? Should I cancel? I was still debating at 10am. 

  1. Forfeit and stay home 
  2. Stop contemplating and just go

I hit the road. Ah, the open highway takes away some of my anxiety from the work week. It was hazy skies up north but still plentiful sunlight. It wasn’t until I headed east on 44 it started to get dense.  

After about 5 hours of driving, I arrived late afternoon. As expected, super smoky skies, but hey could be worse. Despite the questionable air quality, I started the Cinder Cone hike from my campsite which was luckily adjacent to the trail. After hiking through the forest, I saw the cinder cone, an ash volcano. It immediately brought me back memories to Cerro Negro in Nicaragua; I imagined myself sand boarding down the steep slope. 

It didn’t take me long to hike up, despite the infamous two steps forward, one step back. I was the lone soul at the top. For the next 3 hours, there was nothing but the sound of the wind and static on my radio from the Inspiration Point repeater. I was running around the cone looking for the best compositions as the sun turned into an orange sphere. Even through the haze, I still got some decent shots of the Painted Dunes. I managed to finish the 4 mile loop and make it back to the campsite just before it got completely dark. 

September 5, 2018 Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway

Just 24 hours earlier, it was smoke-free. It was the third trip for me this summer, the smoke cleared a week earlier, we had our boat tickets reserved, everything was going according to plan, until the day before we were suppose to be there. A weather system near the coast was forecasted to push heavy smoke in overnight. Fearing our boat tour was going to be cancelled again, we decided to shoot Milky Way into the night so we didn’t go home with nothing. I was restless the entire night, not knowing the fate of the next day, and contemplating backup plans. When dawn arose, it was as I expected, a bland white sky with the smell of smoke in the air, I was certain we were going to have to cut our trip short. Arriving at the rim of the lake, the smoke did not seem as dense as the previous month; there was a small slither of hope. We were lucky to have gotten on the last boat tour to Wizard Island before the head park ranger ordered all boats to be off the water. Even with the encompassing smoke getting thicker and thicker, the color of the water was still amazing. We spent over two hours of our three on the island pursuing an emerald pool on the western edge, painstakingly making our way through rocky volcanic geology and a seemingly infinite amount of ridge lines. As I made the long drive home, I could only think about when I was going to go back or if I will ever get to experience it on a sunny day.