Photos from my hike on the Hog Rock Train in Catoctin Mountain National Park, Maryland, USA. Overlapping trails include: wolf rock, chimney rock and Thurmont vista.
Tag Archives: outdoors
Wonderful Jungle Hike at Mount Santubong, Borneo, Malaysia
My hike on Mount Santubong was an amazing experience. The hike was quite challenging; very step climbing for a long time.
The trail climbed like this for a long time. The ropes could help you climb (especially necessary if there had been rain recently as it is not only steep but slippery when went).
Quite frequently rope ladders were necessary to aid the climb.
Duoyishu Village, Yunnan, China
Duoyishu Village is in Yuanyang County, Yunnan, China. I took a private tour for my travels through Yunnan to make things easy on me (China and Kenya are the only places I have done this – because they are more difficult to travel by yourself than most places are).
I took these photos on my visit to Duoyishu Village. I enjoyed my visit. I will post again with more photos from the many surrounding beautiful rice fields.
I think this is an interesting blue truck.
View of green rice fields from my guesthouse in Duoyishu Village. The other photos are from close by, but some may be from a different village.
Guadalupe Peak Trail, Guadalupe Mountains National Park
The Guadalupe Peak Trail in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a 8.4 mile round trip hike with an elevation gain of 2,930 feet (they estimate 6 to 8 hours).
If you can identify this beetle (or the other insects in this post) please add a comment. See more of my photos that I need help identifying.
World War II Memorial, Washington DC
The World War II Memorial in Washington DC is between the Lincoln Memorial (the photo above shows looking toward it) and the Washington Monument (below) on The Mall.
The memorial was opened on 29 May 2004. Many Smithsonian museums, the White House and the Capital are within easy walking distance of the memorial.
Kuang Si Waterfalls, Laos
Tat Kuang Si park is a wonderful spot for a hike.
The water has an amazing blue color that seems almost fake in photos but is really the color of these photos. The blue is due to dissolved copper.
The Kuang Si waterfalls are about 30 km outside of Luang Prabang. You can rent a open back pickup for about $30 (really I forget I think it was about that amount though) for the trip or you can join a tour group (easy to arrange at many guest houses and travel agents all over Luang Prabang).
Singapore Zoo
The Singapore Zoo has a great reputation, and for good reason. It isn’t cheap to get in, but for that money you do get a very nicely designed zoo. The zoo also supports various conservation efforts and research projects.
I took these photos on my visit to the zoo a few years ago.
The viewing options were often excellent, like this great view of the lions.
There were several shows in addition to feeding times and talks by wildlife experts. If I remember right these were free (or some were free?).
Neak Poan Temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Neak Pean (or Neak Poan) (in Khmer: ប្រាសាទនាគព័ន្ធ) was built by Jayavarman VII in the 12th century as a Buddhist temple.
The site is within a large reservoir (which measured 3500 meters by 900 meters). The walkway takes you to the man made island that contains the Neak Pean temple.
The temple is within the Angkor archaeological park area. I rode my bike between the many large and small temples while living in Siem Reap, Cambodia for a couple months. You can easily see 10 of these small temples and few large ones by bike in one day.
You do get some exercise (which for me was a plus) and it isn’t very hard as the entire area is very flat. Of course the area is also usually hot. You can rent bikes in town for a few US$ a day. You can also rent a tuk tuk or electric bikes.
Related: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia – Ta Prohm Temple (Banyan trees) – Borobudur, an amazing Budhist temple built in the 9th century in Indonesia – Wat Lok Moli, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chomphet Hike, Luang Prabang, Laos
The Chomphet Hike is nice hike across the river from Luang Prabang, Laos. I used this wonderful map for the hike. My hike probably was about 8 km and I went in a circle around the whole hike on the map. The hike would be very difficult (next to impossible) to follow in several places if you didn’t have the map.
Vat Nong Sakeo on a pond.
Much of the hike is through rice fields. I like this ladder over the fence (to keep out goats and other animals I imagine. This part of the trail was a bit difficult for me to follow on the map, I wasn’t at all sure I took the right path but I got where I need to eventually.
Circumhorizontal Arc (Fire Rainbow) in Hoi An, Vietnam
I saw my first Circumhorizontal Arcs (Fire Rainbows) display in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. A couple days ago I experienced them again in Hoi An, Vietnam.
The scene looked much more spectacular than this.
All I had with me at the time, was my iPad mini and this is the best photo I could get. Zooming in on the fire rainbow provided very poor photos. The iPad mini and iPhone (and other smart phones) have remarkably good cameras for many shots. But for a few types of shots they are very poor. Getting a good shot of this rainbow was one such case.
I biked home and got my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS and took this photo.
Close up of circumhorizontal arc (fire rainbow) in Hoi An, Vietnam with Canon
I had actually posted about the phenomenon of circumhorizontal arcs on my science blog in 2006 before I had seen them for myself.
A circumhorizontal arc (also known by the exciting name, fire rainbow) is an optical phenomenon – an ice-halo formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high level cirrus clouds. If the cloud is at the right angle to the sun, the crystals will refract the sunlight just as when rainbow is created.
Fire rainbows can only occur when the sun is 58 degrees or higher above the horizon and when the clouds or haze contain plate-shaped ice crystals. The arc has a considerable angular extent and thus, rarely is complete. When only fragments of a cirrus cloud are in the appropriate sky and sun position, they may appear to shine with spectral colors.
Related: Curious Cat nature photos – Magical Day at Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park (USA and Canada), which also ended with a rainbow – Water Buffaloes in a field in Cambodia – Photos of clouds