Last weekend Tanya and I traveled on a Colorado adventure [thanks to my amazing American Airlines travel voucher]. We pulled in roughly 850 miles and visited two different National Parks on my ‘to-do’ list, all while suffering from high-altitude sickness and non-sleepage. Our first stop was the Great Sand Dunes National Park, containing North America’s tallest sand dunes. I think their tag line should be ‘the fastest sand carrying winds in North America’ or ‘don’t exfoliate your skin before you come here park’. Enjoy the pics!

About: Great Sand Dunes National Park

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Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is a United States National Park located in the easternmost parts of Alamosa County and Saguache County, Colorado, United States. Originally designated Great Sand Dunes National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve was created by an act of the United States Congress on September 13, 2004. The park contains the tallest sand dunes in North America, rising about 750 feet (230 m) from the floor of the San Luis Valley on the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Range, covering about 19,000 acres. They are likely 12,000 years old.

Thanks to my beautiful $300 free travel voucher from American Airlines, I’m going to Denver in May and am going to hit up some National Parks that I haven’t been to yet…mainly Rocky Mountain National Park and maybe Black Canyon of the Gunnison down south.

For more information on how to get bumped from flights and get free vouchers, check this out.

Hey folks,
I’m doing a little holiday sale for my photo site- it’s a nice way to save a little extra money if you want to give the gift of photography this year! I have some fantastic looking prints ready for your giving pleasure and for this weekend only you can save 20%! Grab it while the goods are hot! Here’s my little bit that’s going around:

iNationalPark.com is one of a few art galleries in the world devoted specifically to US National Park photography. It is currently in it’s 6th year of operation, and has sold over 700 photographic originals to various collectors and museums worldwide. For this weekend only [ending Monday the 10th] they are offering 20% off all fine-art photographs offered on the site. To take advantage of the offer, enter HOLIDAY07 when you check-out, for a truly unique holiday gift this year!

View the iNationalPark.com Store

via canada.com
An accident of geography and the Olympic movement’s zealous defence of its name have sparked a bizarre trademark battle that’s outraged a Washington state wilderness guide hoping to alert tourists — including those heading to Vancouver’s Winter Games in 2010 — to the wonders of the nearby Olympic Peninsula.

Jason Bausher, author of a new 64-page guidebook titled Best of the Olympic Peninsula, has spent his life exploring and working in the region around Washington’s Mount Olympus, a scenic peak west of Seattle.

The bewildered but unrelenting Bausher, 30, is refusing to sign legal documents sent by the U.S. Olympic Committee restricting his use of the word “Olympic” in promoting his book and guide business. “I’ve worked too hard for this thing [the book] to acquiesce.”
…read more

Location: Channel Islands National Park, CA // Google Maps
See the Fine Art Photo Gallery / See The Rest of the Joshua Tree Photos

via wikipedia.org;
Channel Islands National Park is a national park that consists of five of the eight Channel Islands off the coast of the U.S. state of California, in the Pacific Ocean. The islands within the park extend along the southern California coast from Point Conception near Santa Barbara to San Clemente Island, southwest of Los Angeles.

Channel Islands National Park is home to a wide variety of significant natural and cultural resources. It was designated a U.S. National Monument on April 26, 1938 and a National Biosphere Reserve in 1976. It was promoted to a National Park on March 5, 1980.

Over 2,000 species of plants and animals can be found within the park. However only three mammals are endemic to the islands, one of which is the deer mouse. Spotted Skunk and Channel Islands Fox also are endemic. Other animals in the park include Island Scrub Jays, harbor seals, sea lions, island fox, spotted skunk, island night lizard, barn owls, American kestrels, horned larks and meadowlarks and California brown pelican. One hundred and forty-five of these species are unique to the islands and found nowhere else in the world. Marine life ranges from microscopic plankton to the endangered blue whale, the largest animal ever to live on earth. Archaeological and cultural resources span a period of more than 10,000 years.

Location: Joshua Tree National Park // Google Maps
See the Fine Art Photo Gallery / See The Rest of the Joshua Tree Photos

via wikipedia.org;
Joshua Tree National Park is located in south-eastern California. Declared a U.S. National Park in 1994, it had previously been a U.S. National Monument since 1936.

The higher, moister, and slightly cooler Mojave Desert is the special habitat of the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia), from which the park gets its name. In addition to Joshua tree forests, the western part of the park includes some of the most interesting geologic displays found in California’s deserts. The dominant geologic features of this landscape are hills of bare rock, usually broken up into loose boulders.

This weekend I visited Channel Island National Park, the last National Park I haven’t been to in California. I did a bit of research, and decided my friend Nick and I were going to go camping on Santa Cruz island, the largest [and in my thinking] with the most to keep us occupied for a weekend of non ability to escape. Since I’m used to pulling like 1000 driving miles in a weekend, it was a bit strange to be stationary and not able to drive really far away and not be able to spend a whole lot of time in one place.

I work nights, so somehow I woke up early and got all the way to Ventura and we caught the 1 hour 9:30 trip to Anacapa and then after we dumped those people off we headed off to Santa Cruz where we got let off in an island that could best be described as Calabasas [a fieldy town outside LA] but on the water and minus the coyotes. Our campground was about a quarter mile in from the rock beach, in the middle of a big mountain valley and under some strange smelling tree forest of sorts. We were clearly lacking in the tent department as many of our tenting neighbors had the full out multi-room mansion tents complete with silverware and pot and pan set. We had a permanently borrowed tent that sort-of stayed up by itself. After we set up our dirtbox we went out for a little warmup hike around Cavern Point with some nice cliffs and got a great view of well kayaks, some more kayaks, and a long long falling death with a misstep.

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This last weekend I made a nice daytrip down to Joshua Tree National Park, while not one of my favorites- it’s a great hike from Los Angeles and I’ve never been happy with photos I’ve taken there.

Thankfully this time around, I got some nice beautiful photos to add to the collection and I’m going through my 99 keepers as we speak.

I also managed to get sun poisoning or something as I couldn’t really see too well the next day and felt rather dizzy. Maybe I should have brought the huge water jug with us on the hiking trips. Speaking of which, we saw some great fresh mountain lion tracks out on this dirt road which got us a little jittery. At least I would have taken some nice photos right before my untimely death.

This weekend will hopefully be Channel Island National Park, the last National Park in California I haven’t been to!

Death Valley National Park, California. by Ian Grant, 2005.

In my recent trip over to Petrified Forest National Park and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, I was pretty suprised to find out that they had done away with the yearly park pass. Usually what I’d do is wait till my pass ran out and the next trip to a National Park I’d spend the measly $50 and get it renewed. It was such a great deal for the money as you visit a couple parks a year and it has paid for itself. So I was doing some searching tonight to find out what happened and came across this article on newwest.net:

America the Beautiful Pass Goes On Sale in January

Last week, I wrote about not believing in coincidences, but it is purely coincidental that five days after my column on high fees contributing heavily to the decline in national park visitation, the National Park Service (NPS) and other federal agencies officially announce the America the Beautiful Pass. The ATB Pass replaces the National Parks Pass, which sold for $50, as well as the Golden Eagle, Golden Access and Golden Age passes. The new annual pass goes up 60 percent to $80 per year.

The new pass gives you more for your money, but you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the increase.

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via yahoo news
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Entrance fees are due to rise at national parks over the next three summers, though a public outcry over specific increases could cause the government to reconsider.

Through 2009, the National Park Service plans to phase in higher rates for annual park passes and fees paid per vehicle or person at about 130 of the 390 parks, monuments and other areas the agency manages.

The government does not collect any fees at the other two-thirds of sites in the park system.

The Park Service, which has planned the increases for some time, did not publicize the higher fees through its headquarters in Washington, leaving that job to site managers, agency spokesman David Barna said Sunday.

The intention was to let affected communities absorb the news and see if they would go along with the increases. Park superintendents can recommend that the agency director, Mary Bomar, rescind the increases if enough people protest. One such place where there has been an outcry is at Yosemite in California, which is in line for an increase in 2008.

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Location: Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona // Google Maps
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Finally got through all the photos from the world’s longest weekend roadtrip of 1,400 miles! Hope you enjoy!

All photos are available as royalty-free stock photos or fine-art prints.
Please click on the images for more information

via wikipedia.org;
Petrified Forest National Park is located in northeastern Arizona, along Interstate 40 between Holbrook and Navajo. It features one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, mostly of the species Araucarioxylon arizonicum. The Petrified Forest area was designated a National Monument on December 8, 1906. The Painted Desert was added later, and on December 9, 1962, the whole monument received national park status. The park covers 218,533 acres (341.5 sq mi / 885 km²). Hiking opportunities are limited. The longest established trail in the park extends for only two miles; the others are one mile or less. Backcountry camping and hiking are allowed by permit only. However, a road does extend through much of the park. Landmarks include the Agate House, built of petrified wood, and the Agate Bridge, a petrified log spanning a wash.

The park consists of two large areas connected by a north-south corridor. The northern area encompasses part of the multihued badlands of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation known as the Painted Desert. The southern area includes colorful terrain as well as several concentrations of petrified wood. Several American Indian petroglyph sites are also found in the southern area.

03.05 UPDATE: We’re back from the longest weekend roadtrip yet! We left around 10:30pm Friday driving all night and eventually reaching Petrified Forest National Park around 8:30 in the morning. We covered the park and then drove back to Flagstaff, had lunch and then drove up to the South-Rim of the Grand Canyon. On the way back we took in some of the balmy 17 degree weather and got back to the Grand Canyon Hostel in Flagstaff. We spent the night in a dorm room with two other Japanese travelers who knew how to say ‘wow, its really cold out’. On the way back to LA we stopped at Lake Havasu City and saw the old London Bridge which was a marvelous waste of a couple hours. In all we drove 1,430 miles in basically two days. Shortly I’ll be posting up a GPS Google map of everywhere we went. I had it set to record points every 90 seconds, so you’ll get the good, bad, and the ugly. Stay tuned!

If you missed the live updates, you can see all camera phone updates HERE

I picked up FotoQuote Pro for my new site iNationalPark.com. Initially I wanted to do a flat fee Royalty Free type stock photography service just to make pricing things easier and potentially get more customers. I have since changed my mind and am going to be going Right’s Managed and backing all my price quotes off this software which is basically the industry standard for stock photo pricing.

I think next I’m going to start putting together postcards and sample CD’s of my work and ship them out, test the waters and see what happens. You never know, but I think going the more expensive route is the smarter decision in the long run. I also own iTravelogue.com which I think I’m going to be converting over to a European stock photography site very soon.