Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Back last month, before I started my backpacking trip in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, I did a couple of dayhikes in the area, mostly to try to get used to breathing at 8-10,000'. Every little bit helps, though uphill hikes still kicked my backside.    At some point in every trip, chaos reigns. This is your brain on travel...   West Fork Rock Creek I arrived in the area just after lunchtime, and promptly drove to the end of the road, figuring an amble up the creek with no particular destination in mind would be a good way to get started without going too far. I forgot that if there's no particular destination (and no steep climbs, either), it's pretty easy to go "just a little farther." My little walk ended up being 6 miles. It was drizzling a little when I started out, and threatening to get a lot wetter, so I didn't take my camera, only my phone. Exciting glimpses of mountainish things. The rain didn't materialize in any force, though a couple of de...

Way back at the end of July, a couple of friends and I joined a guided kayak trip to the Sucia Island Marine State Park (San Juan Islands, Washington). The tour was run by Anacortes Kayak Tours , which did a fantastic job. Note on the photography: many of these shots were done with my iPhone 15 Pro Max, which does a very good job, for a phone. I didn't want to take a good camera onto the salt water, so the rest are shot on a long-retired Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot, as the one of my old cameras with the longest zoom. It was not without issues.  Since the meet-up time was 9 a.m. on Orcas Island, we drove up and took the ferry to Orcas the day before. That gave us time to poke around the island a bit and get a seafood dinner. We camped at Moran State Park (it turned out that all the members of our tour did that, though of course we didn't know each other then and were in different campgrounds). As it happened, the morning ferry was 45 minutes late, so we all hung out at the b...

I got home a couple of days ago, so I haven't had time to get all the photos edited (ha!). So this isn't a trip report--it's just a selection of a few good shots from my latest wilderness adventure, to keep you entertained for a little while until I can get my next real post out.  I was backpacking in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Montana with a couple of friends. Our route included some trails that barely qualify for the name, and some totally off-trail hiking, so we didn't do high mileage. We did do high altitude and high reward hiking! I started the trip with a couple of solo dayhikes (and you can bet I had my bear spray handy; though this area doesn't have a lot of grizzlies, it is just north of Yellowstone, which is griz central for the Rockies!   This was my first real hint of the kind of country I'd be seeing, though where we backpacked was a little less jagged, for the most part. You know I love a good rock. Talk about deformation!   The drive ove...