Scenic picture thread

[kladner]

Originally Posted by MooMoo2

Nice. I went there almost exactly a year ago, in late April 2019.

There's a restaurant that overlooks that area. At sunset, almost all of the tables had food but no diners. Nearly everyone (including many of the servers) left their tables to take pictures.

Stunning!

[Spherical Cow]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I learned the meaning of the strange pre-strike apparitions many years later. It was "return feelers" from the ground trying -- and failing -- to connect to the "stepped leader" coming down from the now-distant thunderhead.

Some years after that, my sister told me a friend of hers had seen something similar when she was young, but everyone she had told at the time thought she was crazy.

When I lived on the second floor of apartments with a balcony, I spent many wonderful nights photographing the summer thunderstorms here in the desert. The large bolt on the right is a good example of "ribbon lightning", and a good "ground leader" is between the two big bolts. Based on distance to that cactus, the ground leader "spark" must have been at least 5 meters tall; I went out the next morning to inspect it, but found no evidence at all of damage to the cactus.

Norm

[kladner]

Bad fishy! Bad!

[kladner]

More longing for the southern Illinois woods

[richs]

Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. I took this picture in June 2018 when I was camping there.

[The Carnivore]

Originally Posted by MooMoo2

"Boys go to Baldy. Men go to Whitney."

Never been to the top of Whitney, but according to the picture at the bottom of this site, you can see Baldy / Mt. San Antonio from Whitney:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/g...a/whitney.html

Whitney is at 14,500', while Baldy is at 10,000'. Both mountains are 162 miles apart. I haven't done the calcs, but shouldn't the curvature of the Earth make it impossible to see Baldy from Whitney? And no, I'm not a flat-earther.

Anyway, this is the scenic picture thread, so here's a picture from the first part of the trail, which can be hiked without a permit. I took a short detour there in the evening a while back. Got carried away, went further than planned, and ended up having to follow a group down in the dark. They had headlamps and multi-day packs, while I had nothing except for my clothes, shoes, and phone.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by The Carnivore

Whitney is at 14,500', while Baldy is at 10,000'. Both mountains are 162 miles apart. I haven't done the calcs, but shouldn't the curvature of the Earth make it impossible to see Baldy from Whitney? And no, I'm not a flat-earther.

162 miles * 5 feet/mile (curvature) = 810 feet of dip.

I routinely see mountains of less height than those from a lower height from great than 1/2 that distance. And from a distance of 1/3 the original have seen mountains of ~2000' from about 1200-1500' up.

[MooMoo2]

Hike to San Joaquin Mountain, July 2020

[Nick]

Nice!

[MooMoo2]

Originally Posted by Nick

Nice!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by MooMoo2

Last summer, I decided to hike Mt. Whitney out of the blue. To my surprise, permits were available that same weekend, so I decided to go for it with no prior preparation and minimal altitude acclimation. 22 miles in one day, with over 6000' of vertical gain and a maximum elevation of 14,500' / ~4400m? No problem, it's mind over matter.

I was unfamiliar with the trail and had to start the hike in the dark in order to get back by sunset, so I decided to tag along with the slowest looking group I could find. The first part was easy, but I started to feel tired at 10,000', about 3 miles into the hike. An hour later, my pace and that of some of my companions had slowed considerably, and our rest breaks became longer and longer. A few of the people in the group with me then said that they were going to take a naked picture of themselves at the summit. I don't know whether that was true or whether they just said that to motivate everyone, but I was too exhausted to care either way.

At 12,000', I was nothing but a disembodied gasping lung and spirit floating up the mountain. I had no appetite, no sense of time or direction, no desire to do anything besides making it to the top. I somehow willed myself to ~13400' / 4100m when someone noticed that I looked unsteady and had purple lips. It's the great paradox of mountain climbing. You can't succeed unless you're dedicated, but too much dedication can turn into dangerous summit fever. I'm glad that someone warned me, because I probably would have stumbled and fallen off a cliff if I went much further. So after 8 miles of hiking, I turned around, leaving 8 miles of downhill to go.

I may have been above treeline, but as that saying goes, I wasn't out of the woods yet. At one point, I got lost and spent 15-20 minutes trying to find the trail, which felt like an eternity. Further down, I saw what appeared to be log cabins. That seemed odd since I didn't see any cabins on my way up, but perhaps I had missed them while hiking up in the dark. But wouldn't there be a road going to those cabins and not just a trail? Well, the "cabins" turned out to be nothing more than tree branches when I got closer.

Towards the end of the trail, I experienced something similar to the Third Man Factor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor). I felt that there was someone near me, who told me to stop for water. He later said, "The trail turns right after this. You're almost there." The trail did in fact turn right, but there was no one there when I turned around. And I was indeed close to civilization. About half a mile later, after 16 hours of hiking, I had finally made it back to the parking lot.

There were plenty of awesome sights along the way, so it was definitely worth it even though I was out of shape and didn't make it to the summit. Take a look at the pictures below and enjoy!

After a few more failed attempts, I finally got to the top of Whitney two days ago, at around 9:30 AM on July 20, 2020. It took me around 20 hours of hiking for less than 15 minutes on the summit. I would have stayed longer, but I saw clouds building in the distance and had to boogie on down to avoid getting hit by lightning. I still got caught in the rain later that day, but made it back to the parking lot alive, happy, and uninjured

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by MooMoo2

Thanks!


After a few more failed attempts, I finally got to the top of Whitney two days ago, at around 9:30 AM on July 20, 2020. It took me around 20 hours of hiking for less than 15 minutes on the summit. I would have stayed longer, but I saw clouds building in the distance and had to boogie on down to avoid getting hit by lightning. I still got caught in the rain later that day, but made it back to the parking lot alive, happy, and uninjured

Congratulations, and nice pictures! I hope to do that also someday.