Photouristic http://photouristic.com A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Miles Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:57:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 White Sands http://photouristic.com/?p=46 http://photouristic.com/?p=46#comments Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:23:13 +0000 Lyuda Polyun http://photouristic.com/?p=46

A trip to the White Sands National Park, NM leaves you with sense of wonder and unforgettable impressions.  White, tiny grains of sand form massive moving white dunes that reshape themselves every night.  We spent some time in the park enjoying beautiful vistas and unusual plants that still manage to cling to life. We tried to avoid crowds and find dunes without footprints and that perfect light for the pictures. We stayed for the sunset at the top of one of the dunes to enjoy the spectacular lightshow. At the top of the neighboring dunes other visitors settled down to watch. As the day was ending and last colorful rays were disappearing from view strong winds started to move in and clean the day’s footprints from view. Afraid to get those tiny grains in the camera and to lose our way among the shifting dunes we left the park.

    

]]> http://photouristic.com/?feed=rss2&p=46 0 Hiking through the caldera http://photouristic.com/?p=35 http://photouristic.com/?p=35#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:22:50 +0000 Lyuda Polyun http://photouristic.com/?p=35 When you go to the Volcano National Park in Hawaii you expect to see grand vistas of spewing lava and flying rocks of a very alive volcano. What you don’t expect is one of the most memorable hiking trails inside the caldera of a sleeping volcano. Kilauea Iki Trail is about four miles of some of the most unusual places you get to see. The trail begins with a descend through a lush tropical forest into a vast bowl of wastelands.
A long and very steep trail through the forest with enormous palm fronds reminds you that this is exactly how you have always imagined a tropical forest to look like. After a while the trail opens into the caldera. When you take that first step onto the lava field two things pop into your mind: first, you are happy you have followed the park brochure’s instruction and put those hiking boots on; and second, who would have thought that walking on lava sounds like walking on shards of broken glass. And surprises don’t stop there. You feel the heat coming from the ground and realize that the volcano underneath this thin glassy cover is not really dead, steam vents are all around you, and deep fissures crisscross the surface. But even in this devastated land you see the reminders that life will find its way with tiny shrubs and trees that someday will turn this place into a forest it was meant to be.  

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