Death Valley National Park, March 2008

Death Valley is a photographers paradise! We visited the National Park in March 2008 and stayed 3 nights at Furnace Creek Ranch on Highway 190. A very comfortable hotel, the Ranch is ideally placed to visit the most popular areas in the park. Our room was very nice and spacious with a great view over the Golf Course (yes that’s right, the Golf Course! Hard to believe I know but even in one of the world’s most hostile environments green grass can grow and a beautiful Golf Course exists).
We flew into Las Vegas and drove out to DV through Pahrump. A pleasant drive which improved the further from Las Vegas we got!
The areas of the park on our “must do” list included Zabriskie Point, Badwater, Artists Palette, Golden Canyon, Stovepipe Wells Sand Dunes, Scotty’s Castle, Rhyolite and the Racetrack. We ticked them all off except the last one. The Racetrack eluded us but it won’t next time!
Some highlights:
Zabriskie Point is very accessible, being only 100m or so off Hwy190. This is a stunning sunrise location for photographs with colours changing every few minutes as the sun climbs above the horizon behind you. There’s plenty of room to move around without hampering other photographers view and compositions. Two of the three sunrises we saw were here.
Stovepipe Wells Sand Dunes (also known as Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes) are a few hundred metres off Hwy190 but they are not easy to get into with the sand being so soft and “mountainous”. I clambered out of my bed in the dark and drove the 20 or so miles north from the hotel to Stovepipe Wells. Car parked and walking shoes on I sweated buckets hiking way into the dunes to get to the location I wanted. There were 20/30 other people doing the same thing as me and I feared that I wouldn’t get the shots I wanted without “intruders” but it turned out to be perfect. There is loads of room here and keeping others our of the frame was very easy. Sunrise in the sand dunes is great because, not only does the soft low sunlight reveal all the curves and textures in the sand, the dunes themselves are pure and “foot-print-less”. A trip there for sunset would not be as productive in terms of finding pure, untouched sand.
Rhyolite is a ghost town near Beatty. Worth a visit especially when coupled with a drive through Titus Canyon.
Scotty’s Castle looks amazingly out of place in this desert environment. Although named after the rogue Walter Scott the Castle was actually built by Albert Johnson as a vacation getaway for himself and his wife Bessie. The story behind the Castle is “boys own stuff” and a visit there is a must if you are in the NP for more than a day.
Any trip to DVNP is not complete without a visit to Badwater, at 86m below sea level the lowest elevation in the US and the second lowest in the world. The valley is overlooked by Telescope Peak to the west and the drop from this 3368m peak to the floor is twice that of the Grand Canyon. Other slight detours from the Badwater Road include Artists Palette and Golden Canyon, both super evening locations with the warm setting sun illuminating them beautifully.
The only lowlight in the trip was not getting down to the Racetrack. The journey involves a 27 mile drive on a rough unsurfaced, one way in and one way out, track. The very negative recommendations from the park rangers gave us the “willies” and we took cold feet. Warnings of tyre damage, getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with no mobile phone signal, the threat of “dying” were all too much and we chickened out. Next time we’ll pluck up the courage and hopefully come away with one of those famous moving rock images.
Some useful links:
Death Valley National Park - http://www.nps.gov/deva/
Scotty’s Castle - http://www.nps.gov/deva/historyculture/scottys-castle.htm
Furnace Creek Ranch - http://www.furnacecreekresort.com/
Here come the photos. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at:
http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/america_march_2008

The Grand Tetons National Park, September 2006

Seeing stunning images on the internet of the Grand Tetons lured us here in September 2006. We spent a week here and coupled it with a week on the east coast in and around Washington DC (more of this location in a later blog).
For our week in the Tetons we stayed at the Snow King Resort in Jackson. This was a big hotel with lots of multi-room lodges attached. Staying there was an “ok” experience, nothing to write home about, but it served us satisfactorily. We self catered in our apartment, always eating breakfast there and some evening meals also.
The town of Jackson was very attractive indeed. It has a population of around 9000 and sits at about 6000ft in elevation. When you land at the airport a few miles to the north of the town you are immediately aware of the high, jaggy peaks close by. It’s a most impressive decent and take off from this location. The businesses along the high street in Jackson are either Real Estate Offices, Galleries (the most notable of which is Thomas Mangelsen’s Gallery) or Eating Places. There are a few souvenir shops and certainly enough food shops to get by. We liked our regular evening wander up and down the main thoroughfare working off our dinner before retiring early to the hotel and to bed. The only slight disadvantage of staying in Jackson is that we were to the south of all the main “attractions” and at the beginning and end of each day (and sometimes mid-day too) we had long distances to drive.
As is always the case, we had done a lot of research beforehand on the photographic locations we wanted to visit. Most of the locations in the park have the mountains as a backdrop, hence are east facing, hence are sunrise/morning locations. With the right equipment and the right conditions sunset shots can be captured using the mountains as a silhouette in front of (hopefully) a fiery red sky. Our favourite locations (all of which were visited several times) included the Mormon Row Barns, the Chapel of the Transfiguration, Schwabacher Landing, Snake River Overlook, Jenny Lake and our “all-time” favourite in the Tetons, Oxbow Bend. There is nothing, in our humble opinion, to beat capturing the first sunlight on Mount Moran reflected perfectly in the river at Oxbow Bend, with fall colours in the foliage and maybe a moose grazing in the foreground – we managed to witness and capture this scene, unfortunately without the moose, but we remain hopeful that we can get the “full monty” one day!
We had several “days out” in the Jackson area. We went horse riding one day courtesy of the Goosewing Ranch to the east of the Tetons. Transport from and to our hotel was included in the package together with around 4 hours horse riding in the most stunning scenery. It was just like the movies! Another day we went climbing in the high peaks. From Teton Village we took the Aerial Tramway to the top station and walked round onto Rendezvous Peak (3330m). Stunning views from the top with only a fraction of the hard work normally expended to get to this height. Another day we went up to Yellowstone – we’ll tell you more about this in a later blog.
Wildlife in the Tetons area was wonderful to view and photograph. There were herds of Bison to be seen in many locations. We were “up close and personal” with a Moose at Schawbacher Landing one day and captured some marvellous shots. Pronghorns could often be seen and photographed (with a long lens) in lots of places along the foothills. Driving away from Jenny Lake one evening in the half light we came across a herd of deer near to the road edge. A stag stood steadfast on the verge glowering at us, protecting his herd and, like a good boy, David grabs his camera and starts shooting photos.
Some useful links:
Grand Teton National Park - http://www.nps.gov/grte/
Goosewing Ranch - http://goosewingranch.com/index.cfm
Snow King Resort - http://www.snowking.com/default.aspx
Jackson Aeriel Tramway - http://www.tram-formation.com/
Here come the photos. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/america_2006

San Francisco, September 2008

We’ve been to San Francisco twice now, once in June 2004 and once in September 2008. It’s a beautiful city with character, vibrance and excitement and we love it!
On both visits we stayed in hotels in the city – the Westin St Francis in Union Square the first time and the Best Western Tuscan Inn at Fishermans Wharf the second time. Both are very nice hotels with very easy access to the main city attractions. The one drawback in staying in the city is that, if you have a car, parking is ultra-expensive. In September 2008 we were paying $40 per night to park the car at the hotel! If we go back (and we will soon) we will probably look for a hotel outside the city, probably in Sausalito.
When planning eating out in San Francisco you are spoilt for choice. You can eat in any country in the world there for almost any price. We favoured Thai and Italian with a bit of American thrown in. The sights and smells, food-wise, at Fishermans Wharf are amazing and if you like seafood, clam chowder and the like this is the place for you.
San Francisco is a shoppers paradise if this is what turns you on. The Union Square, Powell and Market Street area is one of the main areas for retail therapy.
The city is jam packed full of interesting places to visit, things to see and things to photograph. Some of our favourites include the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands, Crissy Field, the Presido, Baker Beach, Fishermans Wharf, Alamo Square, Lombard Street, Coit Tower, Pier 39, etc.
Outside the city, one of our favourite places is Sausalito, a beautiful town on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is literally 2 minutes off the north end of the bridge by car or better still, why not hire a bicycle from Blazing Saddles and cycle across the bridge into Sausalito and catch the ferry back – we did this and had a superb day.
Venturing further afield from San Francisco - Yosemite NP, Monterey & Carmel, Napa Valley are all less than a days drive away and are well worth the effort.
Driving in the city is relatively easy so long as you don’t mind steep hills! Downtown is built in squares so it’s hard to get lost. As mentioned above, parking is the only drawback to having a car in the city.
Some of our favourite memories from our trips to San Francisco are cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge, sitting on the Marin Headlands watching the sea fog envelop the bridge leaving only the red towers visible, wandering back and forth along Crissy Field on a warm, sunny Sunday morning just watching the world go by, breakfast in Sausalito.
We will return one day and do all of the above things again, we enjoyed them so much the first time.
Some useful links:
BW Tuscan Inn - http://www.tuscaninn.com/
San Francisco Visitor Information - http://www.sanfrancisco.com/
Blazing Saddles Bike Rental - http://www.blazingsaddles.com/
Fishermans Wharf - http://www.fishermanswharf.org/
Now for the photos. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/california2008

Yosemite National Park, California, USA

We have visited Yosemite NP twice now and would return every year if that was possible. It is one of our favourite places to visit. Our first visit was in June 2004 and our most recent visit was September 2008. Both times we stayed 5 nights at the Yosemite View Lodge Hotel in El Portal, immediately outside the National Park gates on the US140. The hotel was very nice and ideally situated unless you wanted to pay the higher price for lodgings in the park. It took around 20 minutes to drive from the hotel to Yosemite Village. The hotel also boasted the best pizza place for miles around and several times we “pigged” out on a spicy delight.
Yosemite National Park itself covers a huge area, mostly wilderness, also taking in Tuolumne Meadows, Wawona, Hetch Hetchy and others. This report concentrates on the sights and sounds of Yosemite Valley – by far the most popular and busiest part of the National Park (for good reason).
The biggest difference between our two visits in June and September is that during the latter the waterfalls are pretty much non existent. Yosemite Falls was completely dry, Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls were mere trickles and the views were somewhat lacking because of this. Temperature-wise it was much hotter in September, with the scale reaching 90+ in the valley each day.
Apart from 1, our 5 days there followed much the same pattern. We were always up early and into the valley for sunrise. El Capitan viewed from the east across the Merced River is a spectacle to behold. Cooks Meadow was normally bathed in early sunlight and the deer were usually contentedly grazing there. We would spend a few hours just drinking in the atmosphere and views here. By 10am the light was too harsh so the camera was put away and we would head for a coffee. Midday until late afternoon was generally about keeping in the shade and scouting for photographic viewpoints (and snacking of course!). Come late afternoon the camera was coming out again and Valley View, Tunnel View, Half Dome from Glacier Point and Cook Meadow were all prime locations. We would photograph until the sun dropped hopefully bagging another bunch of mouth watering images.
One of the days we were there David climbed Half Dome, something he promised himself he would do after the last visit to the Park (not up the steep way of course). It is a 10/14 hour climb, 14 miles long and 4800ft of ascent. The route starts at the trailhead in Yosemite Valley and heads up past Vernal and Nevada Falls, round Liberty Cap, around the back of Half Dome itself to the north west side of the summit and then up the famous cables (the last 400ft of steep ascent). David started his climb at 5.30am, in the dark and arrived back at the car park again at 2.45pm, some 9.25hrs later. Well done auld yin!!
Evenings were generally spend back at the hotel (eating pizza and) downloading images onto the laptop and making sure there were enough keepers to be able to head home satisfied.
Some useful links:
Yosemite National Park - http://www.nps.gov/yose/
Yosemite View Lodge - http://www.yosemite-motels.com/yosemiteviewlodge/
It’s photo time again. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/california2008

Seattle, Washington, September 2007

We visited Seattle as part of a mini tour of the USA’s Pacific North West. We found it a very interesting city and from a photographic point of view it is something very special.
We stayed 5 nights at the Best Western Plaza by the Green Hotel in Kent, to the south of the city. Although still very much within the sprawl of Seattle the hotel was around 30 minutes drive from the centre. Travelling around was fairly easy with the Interstate 5 running north/south through the city linking all the main attractions.
Eating in Seattle is a delight with a plethora of restaurants to suit all tastes. Whilst we were there we ate Thai, Italian, American and Chinese and we could have visited many other countries on top of that. There are coffee places galore too with all the main brands competing for your business.
Shopping, if you are “into” that, is excellent with all the main stores featuring in the city centre. The layout of the shops makes wandering around quite a delight.
Outside the city there are numerous places of interest. Mount Rainier National Park, Mount Baker, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Puget Sound, to name but a few.
During our stay in Seattle we had a day in Mount Rainier NP. This was our kinda day. Beautiful mountain scenery and so close to the city. We also had a day whale watching. We drove north to Anacortes and caught the ferry to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. Our whale watching trip sailed from here and what a real thrill it was. We spent most of the time in the Haro Strait between San Juan Island and Vancouver Island and here saw loads of Orcas. Unfortunately the whales weren’t in a boisterous mood so there were no sightings and no photographs of any of them breaching but we were treated to several close ups as some of them swam gracefully past and sometimes under the boat. Part of another day was spent at the Space Needle, the iconic structure completed in 1961 for the Seattle World’s Fair. The views from the top were superb and if it had been a clearer day we’re sure you could have seen the Golden Gate Bridge!!
Photographic locations are plentiful and we went round many of them (several times!). The main ones we visited were Kerry Park, Alki Beach, Dr Jose Rizal Bridge, Pike Place Market and Mount Rainier.
A good tip to overcome parking difficulties in the city is to drive round to Alki Beach, park for free and take the ferry across to the city.
Our only nitpick about Seattle is the weather. You can expect it to be wet a lot of the time! In our 5 days there we had one afternoon and evening that was clear, (we captured stunning views of the city with Mount Rainier in the background just to prove it!), the rest of the time it was overcast. Maybe it was just our luck or bad luck but it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for this beautiful city.
Time for the photos. If you want to see more images from our trip visit our galleries at: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/america2007.

Prague, December 2008

Prague is a very beautiful city, especially in December when the Christmas markets are on the go. Here are our thoughts and musings after a long weekend trip there last December.

We flew from Edinburgh to Prague using Jet2.com - very easy and quite cheap. You may hear “horror” stories about being ripped off by taxi drivers and to make sure you book a transfer from the airport. These transfers will cost around £40 return. We chose to find our own way into the city from the airport. Get on the 119 bus to Dejvicka metro station (it’s the bus terminus so you won’t get lost) and from there take the underground into the city. It cost us £0.80 each, eachway - a total of £3.20! The metro, trams and buses are all linked in that the same ticket does all. You pay about £0.80 for 75 minutes and you can jump on and off as many times in the 75 minutes you want.

We stayed at the Hotel Cloisters, a very comfortable hotel in the old town close to all the attractions. We were 5/10 mins walk from the river, the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. Highly recommended!

We found that in most places communication with the locals was very easy, with most understanding basic English (very humbling really).

Food stops / eating places were plentiful and you could eat in “any country” you wanted. Price-wise things were not cheap, probably because of the poor exchange rate, and food/drink were costing about the same as the UK.

Whilst the transport system is excellent (and cheap) we walked a lot. The city itself is very compact and is best savoured as a pedestrian.

Our favourite places were the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle and anywhere along the river. Whilst you are there take in an ice hockey game, you’ll love it!

Some images from our trip are displayed below. More images from our trip can be seen here: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/prague2008

Brooks Falls, Alaska, September 2007

Once we’d seen images of grizzly bears catching salmon we were sold. We had to go see for ourselves and try to capture similar images.

After a bit of research on the web and through photographic forums we came up with only a few options where we could view grizzlies in the wild, have guaranteed sightings (well almost!), and be safe all at the same time. We chose Brooks Falls in Alaska, within the Katmai National Park, for our adventure of a lifetime. Further research lead us to our tour operator Katmailand at

www.katmailand.com. [As a wee aside - the salmon start their "run" upstream in June/July and that's when you see the grizzlies stand at the top of Brooks Falls and catch the salmon as they leap up the falls. Traditionally our main holiday is in September and we wanted to stick with this. The grizzlies hang around Brooks River until late September when the salmon have spawned and "float" downstream again into the bellies of the bears. We had no fears therefore of going in September and not seeing bears]. We booked 2 nights at Brooks Lodge in Katmai NP in September 2007. Incedentally, we had to book about 10 months in advance to secure places. If going in July you need to be off your marks 18 months earlier. Katmailand’s tour starts in Anchorage, Alaska so we chose to combine our visit to the see the bears with a tour of the Seattle/Portland area (the Pacific North West) - more of this in later blogs.

Our travel itinerary from Scotland comprised the following. We flew Zoom Airlines from Glasgow to Vancouver, picked up a car and drove south to Seattle. After 1 night in Seattle we flew Continental Airlines to Anchorage where we hit the sack for another night. Next day we flew Pen Air to King Salmon then by float plane into Katmai NP and Brooks Lodge itself. As soon as you step off the float plane onto the beach you see the bears and all the travel weariness disappears and turns into adrenaline.

After a safety induction (on bear sense, etc) we and all the other visitors (around 20 “ish”) were shown our room for the next two nights. It was basic but perfectly comfortable. After all, we were on an adventure!

We were able to move relatively freely around the Lodge area and beach. The most basic rule is to stay at least 50m from any bear. We were sheperded past any bottlenecks, where bears were on paths or in the river near paths, by the NP Rangers. The bears always had ”right of way” and the Rangers policed this rigidly. You feel very safe and provided you have a long lens on the camera you still get great photos. For the photograph buffs anything shorter than a 300mm lens is pretty useless and a tripod/monopod is more-or-less essential. Brooks Falls is about a mile upstream from the Lodge along a forest land rover track. You had to be vigilant when you were on the track and whilst we never saw any bears en route between Lodge and Falls you could never be sure you wouldn’t. The only saving grace is that there are so many salmon in the river that the bears don’t need to eat humans!! Also, in September, the bears have had a summer of plentiful food making them rather plump and lethargic.

Food is not included in the package from Katmailand but Brooks Lodge has a cafe/restaurant. Although the visitors have literally no option other than to eat at the lodge the food there is good, wholesome stuff and reasonably priced. This was a great place to share the days experiences with other visitors. My guess is that 80% of the visitors were photographers so there was plenty of good chat around the open fire.

It was a huge adventure for us and we were thrilled to be there, feeling priveledged to view these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat. We will go back - next time in the July, to see the salmon leaping into the waiting jaws of the grizzlies.

Now for the photos. If you would like to see more images from the trip go here: http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/brookslodge.