Author Archives: santacruzmountainrunners

About 2 miles into the Emigrant Wilderness Area in California is a wonderful smaller lake that is back dropped with granite ridges that sit around the lake bowl. To access this lake, one mile is pretty easy and gradual and the other mile has a very steep rocky section before reaching the lake. This isContinue reading “Waterhouse Lake, CA”

At the most far West and North corner of the USA is some small beaches and parks in these remote, wet and green corner of Washington State. We had driven to this beach to view first hand the rock stacking on this tiny area of beach. We were just blown away by the hundred ofContinue reading “Ruby Beach, WA”

On Hwy 108 /Sonora Pass at about 7,000 feet is a horse and trip staging area for the Emigrant Wilderness Area. Just a short 1/4 mile hike from the lodge, store and cabins is a wonderful large flat grassy meadows where the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River wanders past. The colors vary from theContinue reading “Kennedy Meadows, CA”

Just a short 2-3 mile hike from the Leavitt Meadows campground is this hidden gem of a lake that has a silver mountain backdrop. This lake on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Range offers warmer swimming in the summer.

For 2 summers, we visited the Gulf Islands in BC Canada on various trips. There are just numerous little islands that are served by 1-2 daily Ferry’s off of the larger Vancouver Island. This island is a few hours North of Victoria and has an old light house on it. The sun was setting late,Continue reading “Quadra Island, BC Canada”

A few summers back I visited Mono Lake, off of Hwy 395 on the Eastern side of the Sierras. I went swimming in the very salty water and came prepared to partially rinse ourselves of the excessive salt once we got back to the cars. Mono lake is a very salt concentrated lake since thereContinue reading “Mono Lake, California”

Marmot Lake is a un-named lake on US topo maps at 8,263 feet just south of Gianelli Cabin Trail Head. One year while hiking above this point at Burst Rock, I looked down and saw this wonderful lake from a distance that was not really mentioned or labeled on the US topo maps. I wentContinue reading “Marmot Lake, California”

Blue lake is over 10,000 feet on a un-marked trail off of Highway 108 or Sonora Pass. The lake often has a snow glacier running into one corner of the lake and it has this blue and green look to this lake that gets fairly deep in one section. It is above well above treeContinue reading “Blue Lake, CA”

The northerly most city of the 5 (cinque) terra cities is Monterosso. We stay in this city for about 4 days while we visited and hikes the trails to reach the other cities. We were there in September when the weather was still warm and the beaches were busy but not overly crowed.

A few years back I was visiting Provence France in mid to late June. The lavender fields were not quite in their peak yet but enough to see and smell the large lavender fields of the region. As I was creating this painting, I just couldn’t create the lavender color I wanted to express. IContinue reading “Provence France”