Posted on May 21, 2018, 11:31 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument was established in 2015 to protect more than a hundred miles at the heart of North California’s Inner Coast Range. Although its southern tip is located only one hour from the San Francisco Bay Area, for most people, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is more mysterious than the Sierra Nevada. […]
Posted on April 29, 2018, 11:26 pm, by QT Luong, under
Esthetics.
In a previous post, I asked you for input in choosing the Gateway Arch National Park photograph to be included in the Treasured Lands exhibit. Back then, I did not comment on the images in order not to influence answers, so here are my thoughts, together with the poll results. Poll results Thank you to […]
Posted on April 15, 2018, 7:20 pm, by QT Luong, under
Recollections.
By the fall of 1993, I still didn’t own a car. Back then, the same UC Berkeley student group that I joined for my first trip to Yosemite organized a yearly outing to Death Valley during the Thanksgiving school break. I didn’t know what the place was about, but I had known its name since […]
Posted on April 1, 2018, 12:11 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Gateway Arch just became America’s 60th national park. Following my visit to photograph it, I elaborate on why it is an odd choice, try to understand why and how the name change happened, and voice my personal opinion about the new name. Why was Jefferson National Expansion Memorial renamed Gateway Arch National Park? In the […]
Posted on March 25, 2018, 12:57 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Thanks to my early visit to Gateway Arch National Park, it looks like as was the case for 58 and 59, I was the first to photograph the 60 national parks. This time it was only by a few days, as some of the people who had photographed the previous 59 national parks showed up […]
Posted on March 19, 2018, 6:50 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
On February 22, 2018, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial became Gateway Arch National Park, our 60th national park. Believing that the national park designation carries a special meaning, I greeted the news with perplexity. However, I traveled to St Louis, Missouri, that same week to try and extend my record of being the first to visit […]
Posted on March 11, 2018, 11:50 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is recent, been having designated by President Obama in October 2014. This, combined with its relatively large size (346,177 acres or 541 square miles), has made it a target for the Trump administration’s “review” of national monuments. However, the San Gabriel Mountains are long-established recreation grounds for the second largest […]
Posted on March 4, 2018, 9:00 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Instead of its utilitarian name, Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument could also be have been called Sand to Snow National Monument because it spans a similar range of elevations, from the desert floor to the top of San Jacinto Peak, which culminates at 10,834 feet. Although San Jacinto Peak is lower than […]
Posted on February 25, 2018, 10:15 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Sand to Snow National Monument owes its name to the striking elevation difference between the Sonoran Desert floor (about 1,000 feet) and 11,500-foot San Gorgonio Mountain, Southern California’s highest peak. That gradient makes Sand to Snow possibly the most botanically diverse national monument in America. Unlike Mojave Trails and Castle Mountains, no roads penetrate its […]
Posted on February 18, 2018, 11:35 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
If I was to sum up my impressions of Castle Mountains National Monument in one word, it would be “primitive”. See what I managed to discover and photograph in one day of exploring this beautiful desert area that manages to make the Mojave National Preserve appear civilized, without the benefit of any detailed information nor […]
