Photo Blog Featuring:

Outdoor Travel, Adventure & Landscape Photography
www.michaelmalandra.com

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Journey


Wow, I can't believe it's almost the end of May and I haven't put up a post yet! As I sit here in my hotel room in Vermont on a business trip the only thing on my mind right now besides getting out to hike (which isn’t happening today) is the trip I’ve been planning to head out West in August. It all started this winter when the bone chilling, damp, cold weather grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go until April. At that point I said “Wow, why in the world am I here? Why would I stand for this?” Anyway, with too many responsibilities right now I knew I couldn’t just pack up and leave so I started to think about where would I go I if could. Well Maui, & Kauai did stand out in my mind but then I had a vision of Edward Abbey and I realized that traveling in the desert is where I need to be. Why? I don’t really know other than like the rainforests I’ve lucky enough to have experienced, the desert pulls me like a magnet. So what I started to plan to help keep my sanity is a 2 to 4 week photography and hiking trip to the Southwest starting and finishing in Las Vegas. The goal and purpose of this journey would be for me to hike, kayak and camp in as many places out west as possible and to get a body of work together to display in one of the many galleries in our area this coming fall. I’m also looking to not only document my journey in photos, but to also keep a daily log, track all my hikes on my GPS and to upload daily logs to my blog site. My plan is to camp for most the trip staying in a B&B or hotel only to regroup and get my stuff together for the next place I head to. Right now I’m looking to fly into Vegas and make a bee-line for Zion National Park then head to Bryce Canyon, Lake Powell, Grand Canyon North Rim and back to Vegas with a trip to Death Valley if time allows. I’d like to spent anywhere from 3 to 4 days in each place. There’s so much to experience out there that I realize I’ll have to think practical and come to grips that I won’t be able to get to every place I want on this journey. Oh Well, I guess that means another trip! As my plan comes together I’ll be posting more information along with my start date. I hope many of you find this to be exciting and inspires you to plan your own journey to where ever your passion takes you. The photos in this post were shot on my last trip out West back in Feburary of 2008. The first photo is Canyonlands National Park & the other three shots are of Bryce Canyon National Park.