Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I don't seem to be doing too well at blog posts just now--I don't have any books to review (I don't do a lot of thoughtful reading while hiking and traveling, and I've been sick and/or busy since getting home), so I guess I'm down to my weekly photo posts!  I'm making good progress through the pictures from my back-to-back trips into California's Sierra Nevada mountains, so we'll start today with the backpacking trip into the Desolation Wilderness.  I drove down to CA the last week of August, to collect my daughter and a friend for a 3-night backpack into the Desolation Wilderness (west of Lake Tahoe). This would be the friend's first backpacking trip. I'm referring to the girls as K and L, to preserve their privacy.  We started from the Twin Lakes TH at Wrights Lake a bit after noon, having waited out a rainstorm that actually ended as forecast. Inlet stream for Wrights Lake We meandered along the flats for a time, then climbed rather quickly to...

Last weekend I shared pictures from a 24-hour backpacking trip to Island Lake. Today, I have a few from a dayhike and another overnight near the same area. Next week, look for a few teasers from a week of kayaking in the Broughtons (Canada, near the north end of Vancouver Island). In late June I took a friend out for a hike to Mason Lake, which actually is very close to Island Lake (the trail is one of the options for reaching it).  You spend a long time climbing through the forest.   Bear grass along the trail.   Eventually the trail breaks out into a clear area as you approach the ridgeline--and Mt. Rainier begins to appear over the hills! Columbine near the lake.   Mason Lake. Even on a weekday this one is busy, with people swimming and having a good time. I was kind of sorry I hadn't come prepared to swim (I mean, I am always prepared to swim, but there were too many people around to make skinny-dipping a good option).   About a month later, I loaded my pack...

Natural Bridges is located in SE Utah, and is (or has been) surrounded by the Bears Ears National Monument, which it predates by a good century--Natural Bridges National Monument was created by Teddy Roosevelt in 1908 (Bears Ears was protected in 2016). The heart of the monument is the White Canyon, where there are three significant bridges-- Kachina , Owachomo , and Sipapu.  My project on the May morning I was there was to hike to the Sipapu bridge, a 1.5-mile drop into the canyon and back out. What I ended up doing was a 5.75 mile loop from Sipapu to Owachomo and back up over the mesa to my car. Sun's up--time to get out of camp! 20 minutes later at the Sipapu Bridge overlook. Spot the bridge down there? You can't actually see through it from this angle. Time for another bit of pedantry. In case you are wondering, there's a reason these are called bridges, not arches. And that reason is totally tied up to their location. If you've visited Arches NP, you know y...