Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho

Bruneau Dunes State Park has become one of my favorite stopping places when traveling across Idaho. This year I used their excellent campground as a place to spend the night on my way to the John Day, Oregon area on my annual camping trip.

The spectacular dunes are a great place to take pictures when the sun gets low just before sunset.  People on top of this dune were sliding down the steep shadowed side as if it were snow.

One of the attractions is the 470 foot high largest single structured sand dune in North America.  There are a couple of ponds in the park that allow the rare opportunity to photograph dunes reflected in water, but this actually isn’t as good as it was several years ago because the beaches have become overgrown with trees and reeds.  Swimmers have kept a few passages open through the reeds.

The wind does amazing things with the sand.  What can cause such abrupt changes in the ripples?  The color of the sand changes from gray to rust as the sun gets low.

There are a few flowers on the dunes that cast long shadows in the afternoon light, like this nakedstem sunray.

The day ended with warm sunlight reflected in the lake from the big dune.  If you decide to photograph these dunes, I suggest putting your camera away until about an hour before sunset when the color gets richer and the shadows and ripples in the sand create wonderful patterns.

Please respect my copyright and do not use these photos without permission.  I often donate usage for charitable purposes, but will charge a small fee for personal or commercial use.

Ant Basin, Idaho

The Bear Lake Valley is bordered by National Forests on two sides.  Recently my friend, Jim Parker showed me some high country on the west side of the valley that was new to me.  Since then, I drove back to the same area with my wife, Linda, and again with another friend, Bruce Grayum.

My favorite location on this drive is a ridge in the Ant Basin area (Caribou County).  It is an open T shaped rocky knob with an amazing view toward the next valley to the west.  There were thousands of Indian paintbrush in bloom; hundreds of times more than I have seen anywhere else.  I believe that the eroding rock of the mountaintop created soil that must be ideal for paintbrush.

There were plenty of other wildflowers too, like this lupine.  All of these photos were taken in a small area at the top of the T.  On the third visit I intended to shoot more on a flower covered hillside at one end of the T, but the paintbrush were fading and a thunderstorm chased us away.

Most of the paintbrush were orange or red, but I did find one sulphur paintbrush.

This shows how the flowers were growing in pockets of soil between the rocks.

The roads to Ant Basin are dirt and rock, with some mud after rainstorms.  They are narrow and steep in places, and the climb is about 2300 feet above the Bear Lake Valley.  The rocky knob is not a good place to be in a thunderstorm.

The Indian paintbrush were a wonderful backdrop for other flowers like these lupine.

We saw a variety of wildflowers along the roads as well, and they changed with the elevation.  There was also wildlife including deer, hawks, and one uncooperative weasel.

I haven’t explored anywhere near all the roads in our nearby National Forests.  I need to get out more.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and should not be used without permission.

Palouse Barns, Washington

Linda and I got away for a week in the beautiful Palouse region of Washington.  I plan to publish at least three posts from this trip, and possibly more.  One of the sights we enjoyed was the abundance of barns.

This was one of my favorites.  It was in a quiet location near Manning.  The grounds are beautiful, with a manicured lawn and wild roses in the foreground. 

When photographing barns, it helps to include the setting instead of taking an ordinary close-up of the building.  Each barn has a photographic story.  This one somewhere on a back road near Colton is isolated in a field.  Notice that there are no roads or paths leading to the barn, so perhaps it is unused and abandoned.

The Dahmen barn in Uniontown is special.  It is surrounded by a fence made of over 1000 wheels and gears.  The restored 1935 barn houses the work of many first rate artists, including photographers.  We could have spent hours photographing this barn and fence.

One of the things I really enjoyed about these barns was how neat everything is.  The grounds of active farms were almost always immaculately kept, with no junk around.  This was true nearly everywhere we went in the Palouse.  Often, older equipment was restored and displayed on the property, like this color coordinated truck in Uniontown.

We spent a lot of time on back roads, and discovered a few abandoned farms.  This property included a house, outhouse, two combines, and other abandoned machinery.  The surrounding fields were still being cultivated even though these buildings were abandoned.   It was much easier to stop on the back roads and take pictures when we weren’t fighting busy traffic and looking for a place to pull over.

Clouds and shadows made a big difference.  This old barn near Colton wasn’t too exciting since the surrounding fields were bare dirt, but when clouds moved in, the shadows transformed the scene.

The back roads around Colton were just loaded with beautiful barns.  We were delighted to see two together here, and a low viewpoint added the cattle guard for extra interest.

The toughest part of this post was selecting some favorites out of the dozens we stopped to photograph.  The Palouse may not be a big tourist destination, but it sure is a great place for photography.

Please be aware that all my photos are copyrighted, and cannot be used without my permission.