by Susan Bancroft | May 8, 2018 | Blog, Hiking, Photography
North Table Mountain Ecological Preserve For a few months of the year, there’s a flat vista rising about 300 feet above Oroville that offers up an intriguing, if short-lived, natural show I find completely irresistible: acres of rugged volcanic basalt rock covered in...
by Susan Bancroft | Jan 1, 2018 | Geology, Hiking, Photography, Sierra
The desk clerk said “Monday and Tuesday nights are good nights to stay. The rooms are quiet. There’s no Karaoke in the bar on Monday and Tuesday nights..” I’m guessing that’s a good tip, in a sideways kind of way. I had thought about a trip to...
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 | 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...