Category: Travel

Steam Surprise

We stopped by to see the petroglyphs. The Horsethief petroglyphs are something special to me, wrapped in childhood memories. This is also where I proposed to Deborah, in front of the magnificent Tsagaglalal, or She-Who-Watches. Traveling to eastern Oregon to visit family we had made a point to stop by and see this place again.

Locomotive 4449 under steam at Horsethief Lake
Steam locomotive 4449 under steam at Horsethief Lake near The Dalles in transit to Bend
As we were getting out of the vehicle a lady was walking by, she called out to us…

“Are you here to see the steam engine?”

“Uhh? What steam engine?”

This is a bit of a surprise. The petroglyphs are located just above the riverside tracks. When visiting you park in a small gravel lot just beside a train crossing that leads down to the river and a boat launch.

Not having any clue we had to ask… She let us know that a steam engine is about half an hour out and headed this way. Looking about again I realize we are amongst a group of train spotters… Cameras, tripods set up by the tracks, VHF radios… OK. I can be a train spotter today. Putting petroglyph viewing aside for the moment we join the group by the crossing waiting for a train.

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From the Archive – San Xavier del Bac

Another set of images from the slide archive as the digitization project continues.

San Xavier del Bac
The front of Mission San Xavier del Bac south of Tucson
This time we visit the old Spanish mission of San Xavier del Bac south of Tucson seen here during a visit in 1996.

I visited the mission several times over the years, it can be very photogenic. A little patience will allow the photographer to catch the beams of sunlight from the upper story windows illuminating some of the saints and other icons found in this richly decorated church.

The photos are obviously from scanned slides. In the original frames the film grain is readily obvious, I use a little luminance noise reduction in processing to remove some of that. The super color saturation was not added in digital processing, it is very much part of the original slide.

Inside Passage – Echoes of the Past

SE Alaska and the coast of British Columbia are a place where the past does not get wiped away. Ruins, wrecks, and abandoned places are often left for nature to reclaim rather than scrapped or redeveloped. When traveling the waterways of the Inside Passage you are often wandering through echoes of the past.

Inside Passage – Echoes of the Past from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo

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Hiking the Sealion Cove Trail

The Sealion Cove trail is a beautiful hike over remote Kruzof island north of Sitka, Alaska. The only way to access the trailhead is by boat or seaplane. The trail starts on Kalinin Bay, passes through a small pass between two mountains and then drops down to the Pacific Ocean and the beautiful beach at Sealion Cove. At the midway point, in the pass, is a small and apparently unnamed lake.

Sealion Cove Trail
The first section of trail along the top of Kalinin Bay
I have been to the lake and back years past, but the group I was hiking with was not ready to go the full distance to the beach at Sealion Cove. This is not a place to hike alone. We ended up turning around after enjoying the scenery at the lake. This time I really wanted to go all the way.

The first section of the trail follows the shore of the wide estuary that drains into Kalinin bay. The trail follows the treeline where the high tides and saltwater prevent the spruce from encroaching further. While there has been some effort to improve the trail here, with gravel spread and rock strategically placed at the many small streams, the effort looks to be futile. Deep mud pockets sucked at our feet and required careful footing. The dry socks in my pocket were obviously going to stay in my pocket, my river sandals often full of mud.

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