Gorgeous! It's rare anymore that I have to make note of an area that I've never heard of, but I need to check out the Crazy Mountains apparently.

Haven't gotten out that much this year, but here's a few:

Latourell Falls, Columbia River Gorge (February, 2023)

Latourell Falls by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Latourell Falls, alcove of columns by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, WA (May, 2023) I was here as part of a northwest geomorphology conference.

DryFallsNE by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


DSC_0128 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


DSC_0104 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


DSC_0193 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


IMG_4584 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Grand Coulee and Banks Lake:


GrandCouleeDam by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


GCGroup by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


IMG_4567 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


SteamboatRock by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Moses Coulee:


MosesCataract by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


MosesCoulee1 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


DSC_0978 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Here's a few more.

Clarno, Oregon (John Day Fossil Beds Nat'l Mon.)

Pine Creek by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


OR218 by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Iron Mountain and Hancock Canyon by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Clarno Nut Beds, Red Hill by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Iron Mountain and Red Hill by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

One of many lava tube caves in SW Washington:

Depth by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Walking passage by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr


Basalt caverns by Andrew Dunning, on Flickr

Those are some nice moody skies in some of those photos Gower.

Got a nice fall colors shot of Black Butte today after climbing it.  It's a walk-up from the south side.  Unfortunately the wind was really whipping around at this high elevation (9000+ ft) so I cancelled my plan to climb a nearby summit afterwards. Winter is coming...

I've been in Japan for the past two weeks dorking around and eating way too much food, but this probably isn't the appropriate place to post pictures of noods. Very much looking forward to getting back to the States next week so I can get outdoors and do some autumnal exploring and camping.

(2023-09-28, 03:29 AM)TacoLand Wrote: I've been in Japan for the past two weeks dorking around and eating way too much food, but this probably isn't the appropriate place to post pictures of noods. Very much looking forward to getting back to the States next week so I can get outdoors and do some autumnal exploring and camping.

start a new thread, i am very much interested !

Seconded, I'd like to see Taco's photos of Japan, even if it is primarily food pictures

Brice, you made it to some of the areas I hike in regularly, out of Bozeman, in Montana. I really love the Crazies but the bigger peaks, like Crazy itself, are out of my range. I've gone in a number of the areas with trail access from the west side and all is beautiful. We climbed Table Mtn, an off trail walkup for us but an evening's stroll for you, this summer.

The Gravelly Range (Black Butte) is really beautiful and easily accessible high country but would not want to be up there in bad weather. Black Butte was of course the first place I went up there, and as you perhaps saw, it is rather popular (as "popular" goes in that part of the world). I saw a huge herd of elk from up there. A couple of years ago I tried to get up the northern Bald but the smoke was bad so I lost motivation.

I'm sure you're no longer in the area, but if you are, the Sphinx is a great little peak. Also Ramshorn, but access might be limited as I heard about some closures on the west side of the Paradise Valley, up in Tom Miner Basin, due to bear activity.

(2023-10-02, 07:38 AM)MojaveGeek Wrote: I saw a huge herd of elk from up there.  A couple of years ago I tried to get up the northern Bald but the smoke was bad so I lost motivation.

I'm sure you're no longer in the area, but if you are, the Sphinx is a great little peak.  Also Ramshorn, but access might be limited as I heard about some closures on the west side of the Paradise Valley, up in Tom Miner Basin, due to bear activity.

I didn't see any elk up by the butte but there were lots of hunters in the area so that might explain it.  I have had ridiculously few wildlife sightings (larger than a squirrel) while hiking this year.  I think I've seen two deer and one bear and that's it.  It's been weird.

I climbed Sphinx mountain the day before.  It was really nice.  Unfortunately the wind was blasting the summit so I could only stay up there for a few seconds but the rest of the hike was enjoyable.  I thought about climbing The Helmet on the way down (pictured below so others can know what we're talking about), but I didn't want to ruin the day's trail hiking with bushwhacking and loose steep garbage which I expected to find.  Also I wasn't sure if I'd have to walk all the way around to the backside to find a way up.

(2023-10-02, 01:57 PM)Brice Wrote: I climbed Sphinx mountain the day before.  It was really nice. 

Oh, excellent, glad you got up the Sphinx.  Too bad about the wind.  I had a day like that in Washington last week, I could barely walk a semi straight line.  The day I went up Sphinx we relaxed and hung out on the summit for half an hour.  And it figures that you'd try to bag the Helmet too!  For me, doing Sphinx and out before dark even in July was a worthy accomplishment.  I told my much younger companions that they should leave me behind if I lagged too much on the way up as it may have been beyond my ability, so I was quite happy to slog up that last steep slope and make it.

A nice thing about having summitted Sphinx is that you see that mountain from all sorts of other ranges, miles away.

Anyway, I'm glad you got to spend time in some country I really love.  Did you go anywhere in the Tobacco Roots?  I was up Hollowtop once but many of the peaks I'd like to visit are a bit hard to access without pretty good clearance.

For everyone else's info, this is an area in Montana that is around Bozeman (a nice liberal college town) and Big Sky (a stupid ski resort development); the Gallatin range runs from northern Yellowstone all the way up to Bozeman.  It is also grizzly country, which makes me quite nervous, but does not keep me away.