Back to Nature

It is interesting to me that when people say that they want to find themselves or they have a problem to figure out they go travel in the mountains or forest or along a river.  It is great that someone finally realizes that this is the best way to figure things out about yourself.  But the problem is that everyone becomes so far away from nature in their lives that they lose exactly what they go back to nature to find.  If you never go too far then you never lose anything.

American Gothic - High Sierra Style

 I just spent a week in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park with a great group of people.  All of these folks spent a large amount of time to raise money for the effort to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite.  Each has a passion that they have spent much of their lives devoted to: photography, acting, climbing, gay rights, simply being in the backcountry, animal rights, writing, and trying to restore a beautiful valley in Yosemite.  Some people of this group have (and others certainly haven't) fallen too far away from nature, but below are some photos (and more to come in future posts) from our experiences back in nature.

Moonrise

more playing with some night shots

These guys wanted to see a bear for days.  Hours before the end of the hike this guy popped up.

Hetch Hetchy, under 300 feet of water.

Ranger Danger.  What you don't see in this photo are the armed cops in camo up in the forest.

After 6 days and 46 miles we crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains