Friday, July 17, 2009

Hiking and Camping with Dreampacker


Those of you who have had the pleasure of camping with Dreampacker know that you have to rise early to keep up with her, especially if she has a camera (she took about 500 photos on this trip). Even the northern latitude sun above had to hustle. She was very willing to attend the Stampede Rodeo in Calgary with me . . .

but her real love is the out of doors. Especially if it has dramatic clouds.
She can sit and peacefully enjoy the scenery and the day, but soon details catch her eye . . .
and she wades into the glacial river to check out the multi-colored stones more closely.
Suddenly one "speaks" to her. You all have seen this happen before . . .
and she'll save the special one (or two, or three) and wash it clean to go home with her.
But she loves animate nature, too. I think she regretted not being at this stump when a bear tore it apart looking for grubs. But smaller animals . . .
would fearlessly check out her toes and fingers, or . . .
be like this little gray bird escorting her up the slot canyon. It would hop from rock to rock as though showing her the best way to go upstream. It disappeared when other hikers came by. But after they left, it came right back to her.
Large animals were also unconcerned in her presence (this is without a telephoto lens) and continued their grazing or . . .
resting in full view of her camera. From large to small, from dramatic to sweet, she loves it all. Most of her photos probably were of wild flowers. Check out her blog to see some. However . . .
when the mood hits, she loves to explore new sights such as this trail to a water fall. She is on the catwalk in the top left corner. Naturally, being a Utah desert hiking veteran . . .
she recognizes a cairn when she sees one, like this one marking the pictographs on the wall behind her.
It is always an adventure to be with Dreampacker in the wilderness. It is so refreshing to see things through her eyes, and to feel the special love she brings to both God's creations and His creatures.