Posted on November 19, 2021, 11:58 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
This spring, I returned to an adjacent segment of the John Muir Trail, a quarter-century after my first visit. How did things change, particularly with respect to photography? Although I carried my 5×7 camera, my first backpacking trip about 25 years ago was mostly a fun outing with friends on a short section of the […]
Posted on November 5, 2021, 8:03 pm, by QT Luong, under
Recollections.
I first connected with the wilderness on the high peaks of the Alps. Besides the setting of that world new to me, mountain climbing captivated me because of the intense concentration it fostered. During technical ascents on steep faces and ridges, there is nothing but you and the mountain in mind, as the only concern […]
Posted on January 20, 2016, 12:35 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Although it is the first trail encountered after the Kings Canyon National Park entrance, most visitors skip the Big Stump Trail. However, it is an area quite different from the rest of the park, reserving discoveries. Photographically, the dead trees challenged me to find evocative images of what at first may not appear to be […]
Posted on January 26, 2012, 5:54 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Although they are not as tall as the coastal redwoods, the giant sequoia trees still reach impressively into the sky. I found it difficult to convey the sense of cosmic height in daylight images. The usually blue sky isn’t visually that interesting, there are almost always harsh shadows or dappled light on a part of […]
Posted on January 19, 2012, 10:01 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Last year, I spent some time in Cedar Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, trying to find out whether it was another Yosemite Valley. In the previous post, I reported about my explorations of the Cedar Grove valley floor. In this post, I am describing some of my findings on the Cedar Grove rims from a […]
Posted on September 21, 2011, 9:34 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Kings Canyon National park was conceived by as a “wilderness park”, mostly free from development. There are only two sections accessible by car within the park, one around Grant Grove, the other in Cedar Grove. Both those sections are small: many visitors do not notice that shortly after Grant Grove, they exit the park, entering […]
Kings Canyon National Park features two easily accessible sites: a beautiful sequoia grove (Grant Grove) and the deepest canyon in the country (the Middle Fork of the Kings – about twice the depth of the Grand Canyon), however at least 95% of the park is backcountry with no road access. Since in the previous posts […]
