by Susan Bancroft | Jul 20, 2016 | Big Trees, Hiking, Photography
The big trees can be hazardous… I spent so much time looking up instead of at the trail beneath my feet that I stumbled at least 15 times on the ten miles of trails we hiked through Big Basin Redwoods State Park. But you can’t help yourself. As the trails put you...
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...
