Tuesday, December 9, 2014

A Series of Small Thumb Butte Oil Paintings

"Thumb Butte Winter" 5x7

"After the Storm" 4x6 

"Thumb Butte Moonrise" 4x7

"Summer Day" 4x6

"Monsoon Evening" 5x5

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Recent Oil Paintings

"Golden Glow" 8x10 palette knife

"Touch of Sun" 8x10 palette knife

"Abundant Autumn" 8x10 palette knife

"Reflection Pool" 8x14 palette knife

"Call of the Canyon" 11x14 palette knife

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Grand Canyon Hike - Tanner Trail

The backpacking experience is a wonderful getaway.

This time, we hiked the Tanner Trail, my fourth trip on this trail with the last time being about six years ago. The forecast called for cooler weather on our second day and a chance for rain. We started hiking at 8:00am Friday, keeping a comfortable pace. This trail is wide open, offering little shade. Clouds gave us periodic shade as we followed this demanding trail. At the tail end, the heat seemed to crank up. Finally, we arrived at Tanner Rapids for a cooling off. The night stayed mild, almost warm in our tents. Saturday morning, I climbed a rocky hill to watch the sunrise hit the canyon down river. We relaxed and refilled our water before starting partway up mid-afternoon. We camped at the base of the redwall where we had some windy spells and then sprinkling of rain overnight. We started hiking up at 7:45 Sunday morning, finding our water cache above the redwall and continuing on enjoying cool temps and clearing skies. The final 1.5 miles was a steep climb to the rim, finishing our journey at 12:30. After a quick visit to the Desert Tower and a pizza lunch in Tusayan, we headed back home. The Grand Canyon never fails to amaze me!

Here are my favorite pics from the hike:


navigating a rockfall





a sloped trail








night time games

sunrise



the group of 10 hikers

back up





sunrise Sunday morning






Monday, October 20, 2014

Zion National Park

On the trail to Hidden Canyon


Hidden Canyon





shuttle bus, we walked from our campsite to the shuttle stop each day, was nice not to drive everywhere

Weeping Rock

Virgin River

tired hiker

at the Narrows, will have to come back to do that hike another time




hanging gardens, water seeping down rock and plants growing on face of rock


at Emerald Pools

from the foot bridge going to Emerald Pools

our campsite at Watchman Campground, got a bit too noisy and crowded for our kind of camping, but was a nice way to stay longer at the park