A personal geography of landscape and place, art and geo-science.
Ok, this is not a bird photography website. It just happens that this was an interesting week. After our brief birding excursion along the East Walker River, Desna heard that a Red-headed Woodpecker had taken up brief residence in Six Mile Canyon in the Virginia Range, just below Virginia City,
Continue readingWildlife Photography: Getting Lost with the Red-headed Woodpecker
Here is a slightly different angle for the LightOpt Photography blog. My wife and I teamed up on a quick camp trip to the East Walker River to check out birds in the Walker River State Recreation Area, a relatively new component of the state park system. I had passed
Continue readingWildlife Photography: Birds of the East Walker River, Nevada
Mahogany Mountain 6979 ft (2127m) — 1510 ft gain 2021.03.27 Although I had been able to visit the Cuprite Hills on the journey south, fieldwork along the Gila Mountains of southern Arizona postponed our Second Friday overland recce for March. To keep our run going, however, we took to northwestern
Continue readingNevada High Points #81: Little High Rock Mountains
Cuprite Hills HP (Peak 6071) 6071 ft (1850 m) — 1503 ft gain 2021.03.10 When I first imagined a quest of climbing to the high point of each of Nevada’s named mountain ranges, as I studied my collection of topographic maps, it came as a solution to a problem. As
Mount Anna 6908 ft (2106 m); 1755 ft gain 2021.02.12 It is once again ‘Second Friday’, time for an overland. Darren and I hit Highway 50 in the late morning, expecting the forecasted wind to catch up with us later in the day. A storm was forecast but from the
Continue readingNevada High Points #79: Monte Cristo Mountains and Gabbs Valley Overland
Gray Hills HP 6665 ft (2032 m); 1420 ft gain 2021.02.07 It is a nice Sunday afternoon, why not get out to close high point? I have, of course, visited most of the ranges and hills near our home, so my choices are limited – I am basically running out
Snow filled the valleys of the western Great Basin at the end of January, when lake-effect squalls, energized as they traversed Lake Tahoe, cycled through the valleys southeast of the lake. We approached two feet of coverage at St0neHeart, with deep drifts along fence lines and out-buildings. So early on
Continue readingLandscape Photography: Snow Recce in Antelope Valley CA
I spent the day, having started well before sunrise, on an overland obsidian recce focused on the geomorphology and distribution of the Majuba and Seven Troughs toolstone sources. A series of dramatic snow squalls cut that effort short just as I reached the ‘High Road’ from Sulphur to Gerlach. However,
Continue readingLandscape Photography: Late Snow and Last Light on the Black Rock Playa, Nevada
Desert Creek Peak 8969 ft (2734 m); Gain 2740 ft 2021.01.17 With the post-holiday, pandemic surge still upon us, Darren and I continue to focus on target High Points in relative close proximity to home. The Desert Creek Mountains are basically a northern extension of the Sweetwater Mountains, but the
Continue readingNevada High Points #77: Desert Creek Mountains
Montezuma Peak 8373 ft (2552 m); Gain 1624 ft 2021.01.09 It was time for the initial ‘Second Friday’ excursion in 2021. Snow squalls had come and gone during the week, so our plan was to head south into the southern Great Basin so that the daytime temperatures would be somewhat
Continue readingNevada High Points #76: Montezuma Range and Clayton Dunes Overland