Some cool outdoor photos

As I finished high school I became increasingly interested in outdoor sports and photography.  Over the next several summers I went on backpacking trips in Vermont/Massachusetts, Colorado, and Michigan.  I also purchased a pretty nice Canon camera.  I began teaching myself photography and experimented on these trips and around my houses.  In the summer of 2000, both of these interests collided when I went on a three-week mountaineering trip in the Cascade Mountains of Washington through the American Alpine Institute.  These photos are some of my favorites from that period.  Unfortunately, I chipped a bone in my ankle during the trip to Washington and have been sidelined from outdoor stuff with surgeries since then.  My interest in photography has correspondingly fallen off.  There's only so many times you can climb 10-story construction cranes at 2 A.M. to try for a new shot of the capital building.  Madison gets old.

I shot this sunrise when I was 18 after a long night of partying in the Milwaukee area.  I remember rushing home on I-94 from like Oconomowoc to get my camera because the sunrise was so killer.  I was disappointed that the only thing I could find on such short notice to put in the foreground was a dead bush, but I still like this shot.  Cool memory.

Both of these shots were from Brian's cottage on Pretty Lake near Eagle, Wisconsin.  The lake was glass, but our lures were kind of stirring things up, which hurt the reflection we had.  Neat shots anyway.  Nice colors.

This is from the backpacking trip I led to Colorado for some of my friends from high school.  This is from the top of Flattop Peak, a pretty tame 11,000 mountain.

This is the summit of Mount Baker in Washington.  It was a two-day climb to the summit, but we spent a week on the lower glacier doing skill work.  On summit day we left camp at midnight to make the top by early morning.  Beautiful weather.

This is the summit of South Early Winter Spire.  This was an 8-pitch (I believe) rock climb which took us the better part of the morning to hit the top.

Here's a shot of our high camp after two days on Glacier Peak.  This was my favorite climb, because it was a beautiful peak situated in a huge wilderness area.  Sleeping out above the clouds was really neat.

These are the clouds coming in around our camp.  Sort of heavenly.  The sunset climaxed when...

...the sun finally dipped below the peaks, leaving only a hazy mist above the glacier-filled valley.

Here's sunrise the following morning when we were making our ascent of the ice-slope that you can see in the lower-right corner which led to the summit.  Pretty cool.

And here finally is the summit of Glacier Peak.  This was a three-day climb, and by far my favorite memory of the trip.  One of the goals that I have for my life is to one day climb Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska, which is a three-weak climb to over 20,000 feet.