Wild Weekly’s Photo Contest: Clouds

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and outdoor photography magazine Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggersThis week’s Challenge is: Clouds!

Do you remember as a kid looking at clouds to imagine the shapes and objects you could find there?

Here is a dragon!CRW_0034

Clouds also means lighting storms.

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You normally see clouds in the sky, but sometimes clouds do strange things. For example, have you ever seen clouds below the rim of the Grand Canyon? At sunset, during the winter? Doesn’t happen very often.

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Sometimes storms can build very quickly, especially here in the desert. Here is West Temple in Zion National Park.

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Now, here is the same mountain ten minutes later:

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A couple of minutes later it gets even thicker:

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Within ten to fifteen minutes, it looks like this:

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Finally it cleared up about twenty minutes later.

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Looking at this storm was an awesome experience, since it has been a long time since I’ve seen a storm like this. What I found out later is that the town of Virgin, Utah was flooded out and some friends lost their homes from this flood.

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Wild Weekly’s Photo Contest- Scary!!!

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggersThis week’s Challenge is: Scary!

 

Let’s say you were hiking through the desert and you heard a noise beside you, something between a rattle and a noise maker from a new year’s party.  You look down, and your worst fear is realized.  You are face to face to a Diamond Back Rattlesnake!

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What’s that you say?  What do you do?  DON’T PANIC! They are more afraid of you than you are of them.  If they feel threatened, they will strike.  Don’t run, but get out of there as quickly as possible.

 

These guys also instill panic to divers and other such sea faring folk:

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Yes, this is the Lion Fish!  One of the worst fish to tangle with.  It carries a sting worse than an electric eel and is poisonous!  Just like another sea creature that flows with the current: The dreaded jellyfish.

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Yes, this guy can do lots of damage so avoid them as well.

 

Sometimes, fear can be instilled with something less insidious as what’s been shown up to now.  Have you ever seen an insect that is large, scaly, has large antennae and scary looking?  I’m sure you have, but have you ever seen one of these?

_MG_0201This little guy was on the back of a chair at work.  No one had ever seen anything like it and to date, it’s yet to be identified.  Here’s the side view.

_MG_0204It is a nasty looking bug.  Anyone know what it is?  If you do, please let me know, I’m very interested.

A friend of mine had an iguana and I was lucky enough to capture it on film.

shelly17I love the lighting here, makes it look like something out of a horror flick.

Sometimes I get vertigo standing on the edge of a cliff, thankfully not very often, usually when I have zoomed in to what ever is below.  However, I have a friend that loves to sit on the edge of the cliff.

_RW_1743It’s beautiful here, in my beloved Zion National Park.  This was taken from Cable Mountain, which is about 2,200 feet above the valley floor.  This is what my friend was looking at.

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If you look closely, you’ll see the famous Zion Park Shuttle stopped at the Weeping Rock Shuttle Stop.

Around 1900 to 1930, lumber from Ponderosa Pine was lowered on a cable to the valley floor below for building material, since cottonwood is not very good for building.  This was before the tunnel in Zion was completed in 1930, and it was a 100 mile trek on horse and buggy around through Arizona to get from East Zion to West Zion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Move

I know, it’s been a while since I’ve last posted.  Of course it’s due to being really busy with work and life in the city.  Anyway, I’m in the process of leaving Las Vegas (yeaaaahhhhh!!)  and going home to Paradise!  Namely Zion National Park in Southern Utah.

I’m getting back to my element of nature and the wilderness to get some rejuvenation to the soul.  I’m looking forward to this move and excited about the prospects of what’s waiting for me.

I will also be updating more often of my adventures (and misadventures) now that I’ll be able to go hiking and camping again, since I haven’t done any hiking and camping after moving to the city. This excites me more than anything.  I’ll be able to get out and be photographing again which I’m really looking forward to.

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