Photographic Safaris

A few years back, I decided to take up the hobby of photography again in an attempt to get myself outdoors more often. I try to visit places of historical interest or just interesting places to shoot. I have included some short photo galleries for browsing.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

• Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen is currently a dormant volcano—meaning that it is still capable of erupting. The last eruptions occurred between 1914 and 1917. Throughout the park, there are sulphur pits of boiling mud giving off clouds of white steam. This is a reminder that Lassen is still churning magma below the surface. Most of the pictures are from a place called Bumpass Hell which is a short hike of about 30 minutes from the parking area. Even though it was late July when these pictures were taken, sixty percent of the area was still covered in ice from the previous winter.

Yosemite National Park

• Yosemite National Park

Yosemite is considered to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. It's very difficult to take a bad picture, and every season creates a different look for the landscape. Early winter is my favorite time of year at Yosemite. I like the snow covered mountains and trees, the fog that creeps around El Capitan, and the different tones of gray that stretch from the ground to the sky. It also helps that park attendance is relatively small.

Malakoff Diggins State Park

• Malakoff Diggins State Park

Nestled in the Sierra Mountains, the area known as the Malakoff Diggins produced millions of dollars in gold in its heyday. Miners used hydraulic mining—water cannons to blast away hillsides—to uncover gold. Miners then directed the mud flows through giant sluices where they picked up the heavy gold. Well over a hundred years later, the damage caused by hydraulic mining is still evident.

The pictures of the buildings are from the nearby ghost town of North Bloomfield, originally called Humbug and founded in 1852.

Donner Pass

• Donner Pass

The Central Pacific Railroad built the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad using Chinese labor. Using only manuel labor, blasting powder, and nitroglycerin, workers bored holes into the granite mountains of the Sierra. Today, one of the original tracks has been torn up but the tunnels are still there. In addition, the wooden sheds that protected the tracks from the deep snows have been replaced with concrete.

Donner Pass got its name from the ill-fated Donner Party that took a supposed short-cut across the Sierra Mountains and got trapped in heavy snows in the winter of 1846-47. Thirty-nine of the 87 pioneers died. Those that survived resorted to cannibalism. There is a statue commemorating the Donner Party and a plaque embedded on a boulder that lists the names of the people involved. The path the Donner Party followed is now the Lincoln Highway.