A Personal Amateur Photography Blog
The Othello Tunnels were built in the early 1900s for a railroad to provide a connection from the coast to the interior areas of the province. There were a total of 43 bridges and 13 tunnels along the route.
While these photos date from 2017, the tunnels and bridges were severely damaged by floods in 2021, and have yet to re-open. Hopefully some day they do, as it is an amazing place to ride and hike.
An afternoon hike amongst the brilliant red rocks of Sedona on the Sugarloaf Trail.
As noted previously most of the National Parks and State Parks in California are not dog friendly. Fortunately Sonoma County has a beautiful park located along the coast that is.
Stillwater Cove Park, while situated on the coast, goes inland up a canyon covered in massive redwood trees, ferns and other vegetation.
A number of the trees have lichen growing on them.
Some of the trees have evidence of very uniformly spaced branches that grew out of them.
The undergrowth and downed trees added to the jungle feel of the hike, giving it a Jurassic Park vibe.
The small creek was passable at a few spots.
Ferns were everywhere.
The hike ended up at the small cove on the ocean where Teddy and Pearl enjoyed the unique setting, far different than their normal Arizona terrain.
Los Glaciares provided a chance to do something I had never done – gone hiking on a glacier.
To get there we took a short boat ride across the lake in front of the Perito Moreno Glacier, and ‘docked’ – which was really a stop along rocks shaped somewhat into steps.
We headed across the rocks and beach toward the huts to get prepared – the huts looked tiny compared to where we were headed.
As we were standing on the beach getting some background on how glaciers work a 70 meter (210 foot) high wall of ice came falling down (aka calving). It was very cool – but I do not have room for the 30 or so photos I managed to take in burst mode!
Finally we reached the hut and received our crampons.
The wall of ice was daunting – but we were headed for a more gradual rise.
We were broken up into English speakers and Spanish speakers, then further into groups of 15. Our leader was Ceffi.
And we were off…
Before long we were in the middle of the ice going up, down and over obstacles.
The staff was very helpful, making sure we didn’t fall into crevasses.
The views were fantastic.
Near the end of our 2 hours on the ice we celebrated with a whiskey on ice – straight from the glacier. Ceffi and the rest of the staff were excellent – fun, informative and foremost making sure everything was done safely.
And with that we returned to the starting point where we could reflect on how awesome the hike had been – on top of this massive glacier.
RDZ Photography 