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Crummock Water from the summit of Low Fell, at an altitude of 1388 feet (423m).
Lake District National Park.
Cumbria, England.
"Southeast the view is of classical beauty, an inspired and inspiring vision of loveliness that has escaped the publicity of picture postcards and poets' sonnets, a scene of lakes and mountains arranged to perfection".
~A. Wainwright.
Book Seven: The Western Fells~
Perched atop a hill in Negeri Sembilan, the temple was built decades ago and has become more than just an important religious site for devotees. It’s a popular attraction in the town, as it’s home to the tallest statue of Monkey God in Malaysia.
Pictured here is a view from the base of Dartmoor's Haytor rocks -- a granite tor that’s located on the eastern edge of Dartmoor National Park. The tor rises to an elevation of 1,499 feet (at its highest point), and from this location you can view the villages in the valley below. In the distance you can also see the coastline, and the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
There are a number of different tors located in the south west of England, especially across the high points of Dartmoor in Devon. Tors are basically free-standing rock formations (typically made of granite in this area) that rise from the surrounding slopes or hills.
Haytor (or Hay Tor) is one of Dartmoor’s most famous landmarks, and quite the popular attraction for hikers. It’s easily accessible from a nearby road, and provides beautiful views of the surrounding moors and coastline. The Haytor rocks have been protected from development as it was designated as a site of special scientific interest.*
*Haytor information courtesy Wikipedia.
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"Atop Haytor" is an HDR image constructed from 3 separate shots, with a differential of 2 stops between images.
The resulting HDR image was processed using a combination of ACR, Photomatix, and Photoshop (includes the use of Topaz Labs plugins -- Adjust, Clean, Denoise, Glow, Impression & LensFX).
From high atop the hill, SOO 6027 is seen passing the historic Hamilton Brick Works with Canadian Pacific train no. 246 as they set off their steel in Kinnear Yard. In all of my years photographing trains in Hamilton, this angle has evaded me - in fact, I didn't even know it existed. Surprisingly, though, this angle is quite accessible. However all you need is a train - thankfully CP played ball.
East Chop Drive on the top of the bluffs in Oak Bluffs, MA. You can't see the precipitous drop down to the water beyond the wildflowers. This section of the road has been closed to cars because of cliff erosion at the bottom; erosion has been constant and gradual, but worsened in recent years. There are plans to create a seawall to help protect the bluffs. For now, one can still walk and bike up here.
From high atop Breakneck Ridge we see Hudson Line #849 follow the Hudson River towards Poughkeepsie behind P32AC-DM #211 painted in New York Central livery, the very same paint scheme worn by NYC E units that traversed this route over half a century ago.
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First visit to Mam Tor for me and it definitely will not be the last. There was a fair bit of low cloud about at first but it cleared slightly as the sun rose.
Crappy car sat nav sent me to the wrong location to start with. As soon as I was going down Winnats Pass I knew I was in the wrong place. I was quite pleased tho that I got 4G on my phone and good old Google came to the rescue.
Atop Haleakala volcanic crater in Hawaii, with clouds above and below, the sunrise finally breaks through.
Two big AC's pull Elmore's 810 over the 0.6% ruling eastbound grade on the Virginian east of Clark's Gap as they enter the summit at the West Portal of Merrimac Tunnel. In the far distance an abutment of the N&W's Blacksburg Branch, now a rail trail, stands over the Whitethorne.
I have written about the experience of driving around the Faroe Islands in a previous post, but I really need to write about the experience of hiking in the Faroe Islands. However, I feel I have way more to say than is short enough for a single post here. So I am going to break it up a bit over a few images.
If pressed I am not sure which is the better method to see the Faroe Islands: driving or hiking. There are very compelling points for both. Certainly hiking around the Faroes seems like the obvious answer and honestly it is an amazing way to see the land. If driving the Faroe Islands comes with a surprising sense of solitude, hiking then can often leave you completely isolated and to your own thoughts while traversing one incredible landscape after another.
Hiking here is an adventure. There are a few things to be aware of. The first is that no two trails in the Faroes are the same. The conditions you find at one will likely be quite different from the next. By this I am thinking specifically of the logistics of finding and following the trail itself. During my stay in the Faroe Islands I hiked trails that were composed in parts of gravel spread down clearly and easily. Then there were trails of wide packed dirt. These were also easy to follow. I hiked single track dirt trails too that meandered here and there. There were also several trails that were barely discernible boot tracks. And finally there were hikes with no trails at all. This latter category generally had markers of some type or another. One trail had posts with green tips. Another had stones. A third had cairns. In these cases you always had to be on the lookout for the next marker and mentally map out how you were going to get to it. These trails were often climbing or descending hills. Sometimes there were small marshes of soggy ground to squelch through. Almost all the time slippery muddiness was involved. I came back caked in mud up to my knees almost every day and slipped on more than one occasion. One hike I got lost in a field in thick fog on this very mountain (but not this particular hiking of it). I wandered around for ten minutes up a slope before retracing my steps and eventually picking the trail markers back up. The logistics of navigating the trails in the Faroes can range wildly from very simple and straightforward to complicate and requiring careful attention. In addition to that many of the trails involve lots of elevation and I soon discovered that the Faroese system of rating trail difficulty took for granted a certain amount of effort that I did not. There "moderate" trails were often what I would have called difficult and their "difficult" were extremely strenuous. There was a class above that even but I did not attempt any of those. Those trails are highly recommended to be left alone unless accompanied by a local guide.
In general I averaged about 10 miles a day with thousands of feet of elevation change spread out over those miles while I was in the Faroes. Of the hikes I did, all stood out but some of my favorites included Drangarnir (more on that in a later post), Hvíthamar (the best hike for the least effort), Trælanípa and then Klakkur, from which this image is made.
I did the Klakkur hike twice, two days in a row. The mountain sits above the city of Klaksvík, so it was very accessible while I was staying on the eastern side of the archipelago. The locals often walk up it all the way from the beginning, but it is possible to drive to an upper trailhead to shave off a couple miles (and a couple thousand feet of climbing). The hike is known for taking you out to a mountainous point that grants a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding inlets and islands but in truth the whole trek is characterized by stunning views, like this one looking back down toward the trailhead that I made on my return during the second day of hiking up here. This is a trail that also had it all in terms of conditions. Some parts were packed dirt, some gravel, some were no trail at all and cairn stones to mark the way. There was grassy meadows to cross and muddy hillsides and even snow. It is almost constant climbing the whole way until you reach the top of the ridge that runs to the viewpoint. It was exposed to the constant Faroese wind as well. But the views... I still think I preferred the view from Hvíthamar but Klakkur was a very close second.
Pentax 67
Kodak Portra 160
Sunset atop Elephant Rocks. You will not believe what I had to do to get up here. Thanks to Danny Brown's shoe.
Taken on the Sepulcher Mountain Trail near Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Snow stopped me about 20' short of the summit. The views were nice enough from where I had to stop.
Sitting on the overlook from our cabin, we see the smoke rising from the hills. Amazing sight, a beautiful location well deserved of a family vacation!
The southbound ZBRLC is about to duck into Tunnel 2 as it rounds what is perhaps the most photographed of the many sweeping curves between Caliente and Bealville.
© David K. Edwards. Ever since a nightmare episode in my youth, I am skittish about heights. So this three-exposure HDR photograph verges on the personally heroic. Please give me endless credit and of course unlimited love. This is Montmorency Falls, in Quebec, which in height (YIKES!) surpasses Niagara. Way down below on the left somebody has made large graffiti using logs. Well, why not? Uranus is probably full of giant diamonds.
San Miniato al Monte is a basilica in Florence, central Italy, standing atop one of the highest points in the city. It has been described as one of the finest Romanesque structures in Tuscany and one of the most scenic churches in Italy. There is an adjoining Olivetan monastery, seen to the right of the basilica when ascending the stairs.
St. Miniato or Minas was an Armenian prince serving in the Roman army under Emperor Decius. He was denounced as a Christian after becoming a hermit and was brought before the Emperor who was camped outside the gates of Florence. The Emperor ordered him to be thrown to beasts in the Amphitheatre where a panther was called upon him but refused to devour him. Beheaded in the presence of the Emperor, he is alleged to have picked up his head, crossed the Arno and walked up the hill of Mons Fiorentinus to his hermitage. A shrine was later erected at this spot and there was a chapel there by the 8th century. Construction of the present church was begun in 1013 by Bishop Alibrando and it was endowed by the Emperor Henry II. The adjoining monastery began as a Benedictine community, then passed to the Cluniacs and then in 1373 to the Olivetans, who still run it. The monks make famous liqueurs, honey and herbal teas, which they sell from a shop next to the church.
The interior exhibits the early feature of a choir raised on a platform above the large crypt. It has changed little since it was first built. The patterned pavement dates from 1207. The centre of the nave is dominated by the beautiful freestanding Cappella del Crocefisso (Chapel of the Crucifix), designed by Michelozzo in 1448. It originally housed the miraculous crucifix now in Santa Trìnita and is decorated with panels long thought to be painted by Agnolo Gaddi. The terracotta decoration of the vault is by Luca della Robbia.
The crypt is the oldest part of the church and the high altar supposedly contains the bones of St Minias himself (although there is evidence that these were removed to Metz before the church was even built). In the vaults are frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi.
The raised choir and presbytery contain a magnificent Romanesque pulpit and screen made in 1207. The apse is dominated by a great mosaic of Christ between the Virgin and St Minias on its vaulted ceiling dating from 1297; the same subject is depicted on the façade of the church and is probably by the same unknown artist. The crucifix above the high altar is attributed to Luca della Robbia. The sacristy is decorated with a great fresco cycle on the Life of St Benedict by Spinello Aretino (1387).
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur_Mountain_(Alberta)
ELEVATION 2281 m 7486 ft
Sulphur Mountain (Nakoda: Mînî Rhuwîn) is a mountain in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains overlooking the town of Banff, Alberta, Canada.
The mountain was named in 1916 for the hot springs on its lower slopes. George Dawson had referred to this landform as Terrace Mountain on his 1886 map of the area. Sanson's Peak was named in 1948 for Norman Bethune Sanson who diligently attended the observatory recording equipment atop Sulphur Mountain for nearly 30 years.
Two hot springs have been commercially developed. The lowest is the Cave and Basin National Historic Site and the highest is the Banff Upper Hot Springs.
A gondola on the eastern slope goes to the summit ridge which has an upper terminal containing three restaurants, a gift shop, and multiple observation decks. The summit ridge provides views both westward up and east down the Bow Valley. A boardwalk can be followed on the north side to the top of Sanson's Peak (2,256 m or 7,402 ft).
The original, and more scenic, summit access is along an old fire road (Sanson Road) on the Southwest face of the mountain with a distance of 5.8 km from the Banff Sundance Canyon trail system near the Bow River. Another 5.4 km switchback trail route exists under the gondola with trailhead access from the Banff Hot Springs parking lot near the gondola terminal.
The mountain has been the site of two research facilities. In 1903, a meteorological observatory building was completed atop Sanson Peak. This building still exists and visitors can look through a window to see its interior complete with rustic furnishings. In the winter of 1956-57, the National Research Council built a small laboratory on Sanson's Peak in order to study cosmic rays as part of Canada's contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station remained in operation until 1978 and the building was removed in 1981. A plaque now marks the site's location.
The hot springs at the base of Sulphur Mountain are home to the endangered Banff Springs snail and the now-extinct Banff longnose dace.
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