Welcome to the Park Avenue Photo Friday diary and open thread. Each Friday, people are encouraged to join us in sharing their pictures of the national parks, state parks and other major parks and to vote on which park will be the subject of our next Things to Know Before You Come column of travel advice and tips on visiting the parks.
Our Weekly Diaries
Follow us each week with out other two weekly diaries. Each Tuesday at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT we have our Things to Know Before You Come column, looking at hints and tips for visiting a park you choose each week in this open thread (see poll below). Our previous columns have covered:
Help choose next week's column by voting below. Each week's runner-up will return to the poll the following week.
On Thursdays at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT we release our weekly user contributed park feature. Our past features have been
- Jackson Hole National Monument
- Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine
- Capitol Reef National Park
- Petrified Forest National Park
- Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
- Dry Tortugas National Park
- Wind Cave National Park & Jewel Cave Natl Monument
- Death Valley National Park
- Zion National Park
- Saguaro National Park
For next week's diary we're going to mix it up a bit and rather than focus on a specific park, we're going to give an overview of tips and general strategies for landscape and wildlife photography in the parks. If you are interested in writing a feature about a park, please volunteer at our
sign up form and as your window approaches, you'll be contacted (about 3 weeks before) to finalize your date.
Additionally, if any of you are interested in writing other pieces about the parks or park related topics (eg. the CCC, History of the National Park Service, Biographical sketches of park related people, the science behind a park or parks, a look at native American cultures whose ruins are protected as parks, etc) feel free to submit those features. Just ask for an invite as a contributor and we'll get you set up. I think it'd be nice if we branch out into more than just our two regular features.
Pictures!!
In last week's open thread, we got onto a thread of discussion about waterfalls and I decided that would make for a nice theme for this week's open thread. So onto pictures of falling water...
Reynolds Falls in Glacier National Park descends from a hanging valley just below Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Sol Duc Falls in Olympic National Park
One of the favorites of my own waterfall shots is this one of St. Mary Falls in Glacier National Park
Cascade Creek comes roaring out of Cascade Canyon over Hidden Falls in Grand Teton National Park
And a few Creative Commons shots I found on Flickr that I liked
No, its not the Firefall in Yosemite, but rather Horsetail Falls, a waterfall that each February gets back lit by the setting sun, giving it this glowing, fiery appearance as it descends to the Yosemite Valley from the rim of El Capitan. It was repopularized about 20 years ago thanks to a famous photograph by the noted late landscape photographer Galen Rowell.
Another Yosemite falls, Vernal Falls on the Mist Trail complete with a rainbow
A reminder of how cold it gets in Yellowstone, the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River mostly frozen over in winter. A closer view from another photographer....
(Photo credits: Howard Ignatius, Jim Trodel and Tucker Hammerstrom)
Feel free to contribute your own photos in the comments! They don't have to be of waterfalls. That was just the theme for mine for the week.