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Steens Mountain Wildflowers

I try to visit Steens Mountain most autumns for fall color, but I hadn’t visited during wildflower time … boy, have I been missing out. Although the flowers weren’t especially profuse in late July this year, there was a huge variety and the spots of color added a special touch to this remarkable location! In fact, I think that Steens is in the same league as Crater Lake, but without the people (Shhh!!!). This huge volcanic rock was tilt-thrusted 9500′ into the sky above the high desert flats and then glaciers sculpted huge U-shaped gorges radiating out from its summit in all directions. And there’s the (usually) well-graded dirt road (highest in Oregon) that loops you to these sights without effort. Truly amazing. Steens Mountain Image Gallery

PS Here are image galleries of fall trips to Steens: 2007, 2008, 2016, & 2018

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Two Cascades Range Overnights

During the last week in June I visited two of my favorite easy-to-access locations in Oregon’s Cascades mountain range:

  • Coffin Mountain — This fire lookout peak in the Old Cascades range, right across from Mt. Jefferson, often has amazing Bear Grass wildflower displays. This year’s was as good as it gets! Coffin Mountain Gallery
  • Sparks Lake — This lake is nestled between South Sister, Broken Top, and Mt. Bachelor and is a world-renowned photography location (made famous by Ray Atkeson). It is challenging to capture it at its most photogenic … I did pretty well this year! Sparks Lake Gallery

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Sprinter Van “Starr”

In mid-March, a short 4 days after returning from Argentina, Martha and I flew down to Sportsmobile in California to pick up our new Sprinter camper van, Starr (viz. Walter “Pete” Starr). Due to a long Sportsmobile production queue, European “dieselgate” delays, & limited production of the 4WD option, he was 23 months in gestation. And let me tell you, that is a friggin long time to wait for something in these days of 2 day Amazon Prime expectations! In any case, Sportsmobile did a fabulous job building him to our specifications. More detail and pictures here: Sprinter Van “Starr” Gallery

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Argentina

I spent 3 weeks in Argentina in late-February/early-March with Martha and Bend friends, Lori & Becky — a week in the El Chalten region of southern Patagonia, another week in Bariloche’s Nahuel Huapi National Park in northern Patagonia, and a few days in Buenos Aires. Last fall Lori & Becky expressed interest in Patagonia and we jumped at the opportunity to revisit one of our favorite places on the planet with them. Due to not-so-great light and great company, it turned out to be more of a social than photography trip for me. But that was definitely OK since I had bagged lots of great images on my two previous visits and I enjoyed having breakfasts & dinners with the others and at normal times! More detail and pictures here: Argentina Galleries

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