Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

That seems a good title both to describe what I'm posting, and to explain why it's late (though I suppose my distraction came before the weekend). In any case, I lost track of the days of the week and the tasks of the day, so here you get a (random) collection of sunrises, some of which I may have posted before in trip reports.   I'm not sure which peak, but this was taken on the Tongariro Crossing (New Zealand) in April 2019.   My favorite way to wake up: in a tent, next to a gorgeous mountain. Mt. Kenya, Feb. 2024. A series of mornings in the mountains from last August. I tried to pick ones I didn't use in the trip report so recently completed! Sunrise over the desert works for me, too. Hole In The Rock Road, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah.   Off the Burr Trail Road, same national monument.  Same state, different trip. Utah Sunrise Kilimanjaro from Mt. Meru, Tanzania  I'll end with one of the many fantastic photos my husband shot one particular decorative mor...

Way back in January (feels like forever--I've been home for over a month! How can I bear it!), I took a little trip down to Sedona, Arizona, to find a bit more sun and daylight. The weather cooperated, mostly, and my friend Jan and I had a good time. Funny thing about Sedona: because I'm not into the New Age aspects of the place, I've tended to avoid it (well, also because that New Age stuff draws a lot of tourists during the season). January proved a reasonable time to go--though there were plenty of tourists around, they weren't overwhelming. And the landscape is sufficiently amazing that it needs no mystical stuff to make it a place to visit. The trip started with an amazing flight south (in part because it wasn't full and I had a whole row to myself!). It was very clear and very calm and the pilot got permission for a close fly-by of Mt. Rainier. How close? Close enough it was almost scary! If there'd been climbers on the mountain, I'm pretty sure I coul...

This is the 3rd and final post from my  backpacking trip into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness last August.  Here's the report on the  first two days   and here's the 2nd report, on days 3 and 4. Day 5: Oly Lake to Rough Lake This day started with another beautiful sunrise.  For those of you who wonder, this is a big part of why I haul a heavy load into the mountains and sleep on the ground--because it's darned hard to see sunrise at a remote lake on a dayhike. Early light reflected in Oly Lake. Sunrise reflections in Oly Lake. Our route leads up that cleft in the rocks across the lake. It was a relief to wake to calm winds and mostly clear skies, because we'd had a pretty impressive storm at bedtime the night before. Little did we know, that was just the warm-up.    We had a short hike before us, though we knew it wouldn't be fast, so we didn't leave camp until 8:15. We were heading up the creek and over the mountain (back across the divide anyway)...