by Susan Bancroft | May 13, 2016 | Blog, Geology, Hiking, Photography
The big El Nino was a bit of a bust. We did get more rain than we’ve had in the previous five winters around here, but nothing like the ‘biggest El Nino event in 50 years’ was expected to bring. As it turns out, we had just enough to get the hillsides green, trigger...
by Susan Bancroft | Apr 29, 2016 | Desert, Geology, Hiking, Photography
I was driving up off the Mojave on CA 14 on my way to Death Valley to shoot the rumored ‘Superbloom’ out there this year. As I drove up a rise off the desert floor, the flat expanse of the Mojave suddenly gave way to 5 story-high palisades of red and...
by Susan Bancroft | Mar 9, 2016 | Desert, Photography
The irony, of course, is that Death Valley is full of life. Whether or not you see it depends on when you arrive. In the heat of summer most of that life shelters into the earth in burrows or dens, or under a thin layer of rocks and soil; anywhere that’s out of the...
by Susan Bancroft | Feb 3, 2016 | Hiking, Photography
With no meaningful rain in the the last four years, whatever color was in the oak leaves had drained away along with the water table, leaving wooded views so muted that you really began to wonder: just how much more will this landscape be able to stand? Then it...
by Susan Bancroft | Jan 18, 2016 | Big Sur, Big Trees, Hiking, Photography
Note: Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (where McWay Falls is located) is open, but the trails on the east side of Hwy 1 are closed until further notice because of the 2016 Soberanes Fire. You can updated information about all Big Sur area parks along Hwy 1 here. “We’ve...
by Susan Bancroft | Jul 9, 2015 | Beaches, Big Sur, Hiking, Photography
ANDREW MOLERA State Park: (June 2019) CLOSED TRAILS: River, Twin Cottonwoods, Hidden and Trail Camp/Headlands. OPEN TRAILS: Creamery Meadow, Ridge, Bluffs, Panorama, Spring, East Molera, Bobcat and Coyote Flat trails. NOTE: On October 31, 2018 the seasonal footbridge...
