Tag: hiking

Canada Trip, 2016: Skyline Trail

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Here are some photos from our hike of the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. There are not a ton of shots from this hike because it was toward the end of a long, rainy day of driving the Cabot Trail. The most prominent memory from this hike was that we almost got run over by an enormous male moose! It was grazing just off the main trail and we stopped along with other hikers to take a look. Some people were taking photos and the moose suddenly took off running down the trail right toward us. We bolted away from it, our lives flashing before our eyes, until the moose finally veered back off the trail and dashed off into the woods. Needless to say, I did not capture that photo! The lesson here–don’t get anywhere near a moose in the wild–we nearly learned that the very hard way. Even though we never left the trail and thought we were being responsible, we were still too close, and the crowd of people gathering clearly spooked the moose.

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Ausable Chasm – April, 2024

Michael Rappa1 Comment

During my stay in Lake Champlain for the solar eclipse, I visited a nearby park called Ausable Chasm, which reminded me a bit of Watkins Glen State Park. While not as pretty as Watkins Glen, Ausable still has plenty of beauty with some good hiking and a much stronger river running through it (though that may have something to do with the fact that I visited in Ausable in April and Watkins Glen in September). It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

A Machu Picchu Milestone

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It’s my ten year anniversary of reaching Machu Picchu after an arduous four-day hike of the Inca Trail through rain, sleet, and altitude sickness. Despite my tribulations, the journey and the destination were more than worth it. It’s an experience I will never forget.

Machu Picchu – August, 2012

My traveling has been on hold since the pandemic—I hope to get back to it again someday soon. In the meantime, here are my journals from the entire Peru trip, culminating in my arrival at Machu Picchu.

The Peru Journals:

Canada Trip, 2016: Prince Edward Island

Michael RappaLeave a comment

I’m finally getting around to sharing travel photos again after a long layoff—(the instagram fiasco soured me on photo sharing for a while and in the interim I switched my attention to writing prose again)—but I’m back.

First up: Prince Edward Island. We only allotted two days to spend here but it ended up being one of our favorite legs of the trip. We stayed on the less-touristy northeast side of the island at a charming place on a cliff overlooking the sea called the Johnson Shore Inn. The view from our room was spectacular. The entire visit was relaxing and serene, and during our walks it felt like we had the entire island to ourselves. I only wish we could have spent more time here.

This collection includes shots from the inn and our hikes along the shore and the cliffs, as well as a couple of shots from our visit to the Souris Historic Lighthouse.

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Glacier National Park, 2019: Wildlife

Michael Rappa

Here are some animals I encountered during my hikes in Glacier National Park. I was particularly thrilled that I was able to see a bighorn sheep in the wild on my way back down from Grinnell Glacier.

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Ram on the Grinell Glacier Trail
Ram on the Grinell Glacier Trail
Moose walking away from lake, viewed from high up on the Grinell Glacier Trail.
Chipmunk at St. Mary Falls
Chipmunk at St. Mary Falls
Mountain goat high up on a mountain at Two Medicine.
Mountain goat high up on a cliff at Two Medicine.
Marmot on the Highline Trail
Marmot on the Highline Trail

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Canada Trip, 2016: The Ovens and Lunenberg

Michael RappaLeave a comment

In the middle of our long drive from Halifax to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, we stopped at The Ovens, a beautiful coastal national park featuring a hiking trail along a series of sea caves. We then had a nice early dinner at a little German restaurant on the side of the road before heading into the cute seaside town of Lunenburg for a walk. Lunenburg is another of those towns that made me fall in love with the Canadian Maritimes and fantasize about moving there.

Fans of Locke and Key may recognize both The Ovens and Lunenberg as filming locations for the series, though our visit was long before the show aired. I seem to have a habit of visiting places before a TV show begins filming there–years ago I visited both Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia before Game of Thrones had begun filming in those cities.

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California Trip, 2014: Redwoods in Yosemite

Michael Rappa

On my way out of Yosemite National Park I stopped for a hike through the Mariposa grove of giant sequoias (aka redwoods). They don’t grow as tall as the coastal redwoods, but they grow wider–some are so massive that their branches actually look like trees themselves. It’s impossible for any photo to do these behemoths justice, but the people in some of the shots below, and the fact that many of the large surrounding trees look like sticks next to the redwoods, help to provide a sense of scale.

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Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
I thought this was a redwood pine cone because of how enormous it is, but redwoods apparently have small cones, so I’m not sure what type of tree this belongs to.
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014
Yosemite National Park – October, 2014

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Glacier National Park, 2019: Panoramas

Michael Rappa

This is a collection of panoramas from my visit to Glacier National Park. For the most part I didn’t take any deliberate panorama shots on this trip–these were all stitched together from separate photos that I later realized would make good panoramas. The exceptions are the two night shots, which were sort of deliberate in that I aimed the camera in the dark at different angles for long exposures and hoped for the best (the Lake McDonald one, in particular, turned out pretty well).

The first four photos below feature views from the hotels where I stayed in Apgar Village and Many Glacier; the next three were taken during my hikes of the Highline and Grinnell Glacier trails, and the final photo is a view that should be familiar to fans of The Shining or Big Sky.

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Lake McDonald
Many Glacier: Swiftcurrent Lake
Many Glacier: Swiftcurrent Lake
Many Glacier: Swiftcurrent Lake
Highline Trail
Red pool near Grinnell Glacier.
Grinnell Glacier Trail
St. Mary Lake: Wild Goose Island

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American Southwest Trip, 2018: Bryce Canyon – Thor’s Hammer and Rim Trail

Michael Rappa

This final batch of photos from my visit to Bryce Canyon National Park consists of shots from the other leg of the Navajo Loop Trail, where I partially descended for a view of the famous Thor’s Hammer rock formation before climbing back up and starting my full descent into the canyon down the Wall Street leg. Additionally, there are photos from my walk along the Rim Trail between Sunrise and Sunset points.

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Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Thor’s Hammer on the Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Navajo Loop
Rim Trail
Rim Trail
Rim Trail
Rim Trail

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Glacier National Park, 2019: Twin Falls Trail

Michael Rappa

These photos are from my hike of the Twin Falls Trail in the Two Medicine region of Glacier National Park. I had booked a boat (which I nearly missed after hitting road construction on the way to Two Medicine) to the far end of Two Medicine Lake, where I embarked on a guided hike to Twin Falls. I normally prefer to hike on my own, but being by myself in grizzly country, I thought it best to stick with a crowd, and considering the trees along the trail that were marked with giant grizzly claw scratches, I think it was the right call.

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Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail
Twin Falls Trail

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