Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Way back last August, I joined a couple of friends (Craig and Alex) to do a 7-day backpack trip through the Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness on the Montana-Wyoming border (just north of Yellowstone). The landscape exceeded expectations by a wide margin, and I'll be going back. Way back last fall I shared photos of the dayhikes I did while acclimatizing. The night before the backpack was to start, we three met up at a campground in the area, to finish packing and planning, and hit the road early. We had to set up our car shuttle (for a one-way hike) before we could start walking. Since our exit trailhead was kind of 4WD, I wouldn't be going there, and so took my time on the drive to the put-in and enjoyed the amazing Beartooth Pass highway. Some of the twisty bits climbing the east side of the pass. The pass is more like a summit, and when you get there, you are definitely in the alpine, at 11,000'. One of many scenic lakes along the west side of the pass.   What with all the ...

This is part of my on-going series of photo posts about my trip to Iceland in September 2025, including a  my 2-week  campervan tour of the Ring Road. If you haven't seen the previous posts and want to read them in order, here are the links to post #1     post #2     post #3     post #4     post # 5   post #6    post #7 , and post #8 .  Day 11 (Sept. 21): Skogafoss Waterfall hike. Nothing about waking up at Skogafoss was as nice as the campground the previous morning. The bare parking lot, the dingy loos (though they were a lot closer), and the weather were none a match. But the hike! Wow. I might wish I'd done it in bright, sunny weather, but I'm not sure that light would have been as good as what I had. Unlike most other people camped there, I was up at first light, and on the trail as early as possible (7:40 a.m., which isn't bad given we were at the autumn equinox--sunrise at 7:08, if it had been clear enough...