Your Bio

Welcome to our small cyber outpost where we share images from our explorations. The theme here is simple and can be summed up with a quote from Canaan Valley, West Virginia crosscountry ski guru Chip Chase: "Simply the finest pleasure is standing on this great planet."

While we live in Washington, our passions lie in mountain and rural landscapes where much of our spare time is spent exploring highland regions near and far. You can find us traveling both on and off trail, scrambling over rocks and up streambeds, skiing through deep woods and paddling remote streams. Photography, books, travel and other things that reflect on life's texture also command our spare time. Mark has a slight bent for adrenaline; Clare is more cautious but also loves traveling in challenging but magnificent terrain.

Both of us share the enjoyable task of taking the pictures you'll see here. We hope these images will inspire you to escape the enclosed confines of our modern existence and scramble to the nearest trailhead, stream, mountain or forest. Nothing short of self-discovery awaits.

Best Regards, Clare & Mark

-All photos and material copyright protected. © Copyright 2004- 2009.

Featured Galleries

High Sierra Light Show, CA (8/2009) : Mother Nature put on daily light shows during a weeklong backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. Both dawn and dusk stunned our senses as we walked from Kearsarge Pass to Mount Whitney in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and Inyo National Forest in California. Several sequences in this gallery were shot only minutes apart as dawn and evening light cast ever-changing but vibrant colors.

High Sierra Light Show, CA (8/2009)

Mother Nature put on daily light shows during a weeklong backpacking t ...

Updated: Sep 16, 2009 11:41am PST

Mount Rogers, VA (10/2009) : Reaching the top of Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia, is a lesson on how it's about the journey and not the destination. At 5,729 ft., the top of Virginia towers over the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains but is shrouded in second growth spruce trees. We approached along Wilburn Ridge on the Appalachian Trail from Grayson Highlands State Park, passing through open high country that affords one stunning vista after another. The mid-October trip was unusually cold; the jet stream had pushed Canadian air deep into the Appalachian mountains, bringing snow and sub-freezing temperatures to the southern mountains. This brisk weather flash-froze precipitation on vegetation, coating everything above a certain elevation in white frosting. Dramatic light and cloud patterns combined with the snow made this outing one of the most breathtaking we've ever experienced.

Mount Rogers, VA (10/2009)

Reaching the top of Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia, is a ...

Updated: Oct 26, 2009 8:10pm PST

Mount Whitney, CA (9/2009) : At 14,497 ft. above sea level Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous U.S. and is one of many wonders in the Sierra Nevada of California. Reaching the top is a hike, no technical skills are needed. But it is still quite the chore to get there - get fit, haggle with park authorities over permits, buy a bear canister, drive into the California desert, etc. We hiked to the top of Whitney as part of a weeklong 52-mile backpacking trip. Our ascent came near the end of the trip and was set up so it wouldn't be the death march required by a single day attempt. Our ascent of Whitney came on day six of our trip. We started from Guitar Lake on the western side of Mount Whitney, made our way to the top, and finished the day at Outpost Camp on the eastern side. The early start wasn't mandatory - but it gave us the chance to enjoy sunrise on the climb and avoid a surge of dayhiking traffic that comes midday. Our elevation gain for the day was a reasonable 3,000 ft. or so and our descent was just under 4,000 ft. We were in camp by 3 p.m., even with delays associated with helping a lone hiker down the mountain who was experiencing serious altitude sickness.

Mount Whitney, CA (9/2009)

At 14,497 ft. above sea level Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the ...

Updated: Sep 16, 2009 1:31pm PST

Big Trees along the Boogerman Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC (10/2009) : Several of the biggest trees in the East live in Great Smoky Mountains National Park where pockets of old-growth escaped logging during the industrial boom. One of those places is the Boogerman Grove, in the park's southeastern reaches, and it is full of towering giants. The Eastern Native Tree Society has documented numerous large trees in this area. The tallest known eastern tree - a 186 ft. tall white pine - is here, as is the largest known tulip poplar by volume. We visited this grove on a multi-day trip in the Smokies. In one section we saw one giant white pine after another, each towering over the forest canopy. Old-growth tulip poplars commanded small coves on the park's northern aspects. The area includes stands of old-growth eastern hemlocks, almost all of them standing dead after infection with the hemlock wooly adelgid. Along nearby high ridges, one can also see old-growth red spruce and occasional stunted old-growth oaks.

Big Trees along the Boogerman Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC (10/2009)

Several of the biggest trees in the East live in Great Smoky Mountains ...

Updated: Nov 02, 2009 12:58pm PST

Slideshow

Gallery Categories

Mountains

25 galleries with 869 photos

Updated: Nov 02, 2009 12:51pm PST

Trails

18 galleries with 390 photos

Updated: Nov 14, 2007 9:41pm PST

Snow

19 galleries with 579 photos

Updated: Dec 10, 2008 3:26pm PST

Waterfalls

10 galleries with 207 photos

Updated: Nov 02, 2009 12:50pm PST

Creekyoneering

7 galleries with 230 photos

Updated: Jul 27, 2009 1:13pm PST

Rivers

10 galleries with 160 photos

Updated: Apr 30, 2008 2:56pm PST

Nature

7 galleries with 87 photos

Updated: Jul 09, 2009 7:40pm PST

Washington

7 galleries with 86 photos

Updated: Dec 22, 2005 7:29pm PST

Buxton Outpost

14 galleries with 446 photos

Updated: Oct 14, 2009 4:19am PST

Cities

7 galleries with 285 photos

Updated: Sep 23, 2008 8:16pm PST

Caves

1 gallery with 15 photos

Updated: Nov 03, 2005 7:36pm PST

Family

8 galleries with 224 photos

Updated: Feb 04, 2009 1:19pm PST

Other Pursuits

10 galleries with 183 photos

Updated: Nov 03, 2006 9:10am PST

Friends & Family