Paraglider

A couple of months ago I posted a picture from the top of Mount Herman, and I mentioned that I had some older photos of paragliders taken from the top. I dug them out, and here they are. They are from September 2007, and they'll make an appropriate Skywatch Friday post.

For a paraglider, the term "takeoff run" is literal, as they run to get lift. In this case, they run off the top of the mountain, over a cliff. It takes more guts than I'd have - in fact, one of them almost crashed because he didn't get enough lift. However, this one had a perfect takeoff.

For more photos featuring the sky as a background, visit the Skywatch Friday meme.

Pulpit Socks

From my recent climb up Pulpit Rock, here's a photo of my hiking buddy Socks near the top (hence the bad pun in the title). He'll hike for miles, and handles steep terrain better than I do.

This little critter is an important part of my world, and that's why he's my entry for the My World Tuesday meme again. Visit it today!

More Golden Aspen

For Scenic Sunday, here are more aspen photos from last weekend's hike in Horsethief Park. There weren't many good stands of golden aspen, but I found one.

Here are a couple of close-ups.

I liked the pine tree in the middle of these aspen; in a couple of weeks it will be much more visible.

Finally, here's a wide shot of the valley up which I hiked to see these aspen. To get back to the road, you'd hike down to the base of the pine-covered mountain, turn right, and hike downhill for another half-mile.

For more landscapes and other scenic shots, visit Scenic Sunday.

Golden Aspen & Blue Sky

This hasn't been a good year for aspen, as the incredibly hot, dry fall has stressed the trees, and many of them are dropping their leaves while still green. But I was able to find one good stand after hiking up into a valley a little over 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in elevation on the back of Pikes Peak, in an area known as Horsethief Park (because it's where horse thieves used to hide).

I'll post more aspen photos in a couple of days. For more sky-themed photos, visit Skywatch Friday.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel

Our first night in Yellowstone we stayed in the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, also known as the Lake Yellowstone Lodge. It was an attractive, old (for the area) building on the shore of Lake Yellowstone. Here's a photo taken shortly after sunset.

There was a string quartet playing classical music when we arrived.

This was the corridor where our room was, it seemed somehow slightly creepy to me.

It was nice to be able to stay in the park rather than needing to drive in each day, I'd recommend that to anybody who wants to visit. And that's a part of my world from a few weeks ago, visit the My World Tuesday site for lots of other blog posts on all types of things.

Mud Volcano & Dragon's Mouth Spring (Yellowstone)

One of the areas along the Yellowstone roads contains two main attractions. It's in a fairly active area, as can be seen from the several areas of steam in this first photo.

First from the boardwalk you can see the Dragon's Mouth Spring, so-called because it belches large plumes of steam and roars like a dragon. It also sends out periodic waves of water.

The water drains out along a channel; the colors are from bacterial mats.

There is also a bubbling pool of mud.

And finally, the mud volcano is visible. It doesn't look impressive in this photo, but it's a boiling mass of muddy water that never stops exploding.

Pulpit Rock From Below

This week's Skywatch Friday posts contains some photos from a hike I took on Sunday up Pulpit Rock, which is one of many parks in the city of Colorado Springs. These photographs show the rock from below - Socks and I made it to the top, and I'll have other assorted photos later. The weather was beautiful - a few clouds, warm but not too hot. This first shot is looking south towards Pulpit Rock.

The next one was taken part way up, looking at the very top.

And finally, after descending on the other side, here's a photo looking back towards it (looking north).

For more upward-looking photos, visit the Skywatch Friday meme.