I started last year’s post with: “This past year was a big one for me, travel-wise. So much so that I actually think I burned myself out.” Well, I ended up going even bigger this year driving nearly 14,000 miles and flying almost 40,000 miles… New York, Chicago, Boston, Dubai, Singapore, the Maldives, Hawaii and all my normal camping, hiking, biking, and national parks trips around the west.
By the time this fall rolled around, when I normally do a long road trip to capture the fall foliage and then spend some time in the desert, I was actually more content sticking around home than I was heading back out on the road – mentally, but financially as well
Over the course of three days, I walked nearly 30 miles around Singapore this past spring, which I think was pretty impressive considering how much I also took the incredibly efficient MRT around as well.
t was an incredible city and I loved every moment there, but I can’t say I really did anything notable because all I really did was wander and take pictures of the dizzying sensory-fest of a city.
When I’m backpacking, I usually enjoy doing little-to-no work once I’ve reached and set up camp. Because of this, there were times during my once-in-a-lifetime High Sierra trip where I didn’t even go out and shoot during the golden hours, usually using the excuse of being too tired to wander around.
Hiking under the moonlight, I knew we had made quick work of the 3-miles of switchbacks traversing up the west side of Mount Whitney, but I was in serious disbelief as we topped out at Trail Crest well before sunrise.
Standing only 84.6 miles from Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, which is the lowest point in North America (-282 feet), Mt Whitney is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States at 14,505 feet – a whopping 14,787 foot difference!
The High Sierra Trail continued for a bit through the same, dried up forest we encountered the previous day, but as we approached treeline, the landscape gave way to familiar soaring alpine habitats with trickling creeks, grassy tussocks, soggy meadows, and occasional tarns.
Waking up on our fifth morning, we were already a day ahead of schedule and still technically had that Guitar Lake rest day built-in, so we decided to break up that section with a night at Crabtree Ranger Station before continuing on the Guitar Lake.