When asked by the good folks at Chilluminati if I wanted to play once again at the Karmaklysm event in Wisconsin this summer Alisha and I deciced to make it into a roadtrip to see Priest Lake – Idaho, Glacier National Park, the Grasslands, and Minneapolis along the long drive from Portland to Wisconsin. I was excited to give the newest addition to my kit a field test, this being the jawdropping 70-200mm f2.8 II. We had previously tried to book a 7 day backcountry hike, but it fills up fast and the hikes are awarded by lottery. We settled for a staying two nights. We camped at flattop mountain two nights. In the day in between hiking in and hiking out we hiked up to 50 mountain which was amazing – all in all it was a quality 27 mile hike. from which my legs are still sore. After Glacier we drove all day until we could go no further and caught the National Grasslands in North Dakota in the early morning. By the evening we ended up in Minneapolis and enjoy dinner and drinks with our friend Mellissa. We spent the next two days at the event with our homie Chad (Bogmon for those in the know). Not a whole lot to say about the cannonball run on the way back other than we tried to barrel through it as fast as possible. If you like any of the photos I recommend checking them out large to see the incredible detail the new lens captures (the wide angles of course are with the 10-22mm)
Awe-inspiring early morning storm front in North Dakota
Alisha spinning in the Grasslands
Alisha took this one =)
Moutain range from across the valley.
My first bokeh test. So smooth I want to eat it.
Priest Lake Sunset Bokeh test 2
Montana Field at days end.
Meeting of mountains
Grasslands
Fractal Mountain side lit by sparse cloudbreaks.
View from Flattop Mountain
Misa posing for a sharpness test
Sunset Bokeh
Alisha relaxing in an alpine meadow
50 Mountain. This meadow fills me with a special feeling. =)
More Glacier majesticness. New word!
U-shaped Glacial Valley
The business end of the storm.
Of course, no trip to SE Asia would be complete without a visit to Cambodia to see the Angkor complex near Siem Reap. This complex includes Angkor Wat which is said to be the worlds largest religious complex, which means I’ve eaten the worlds best pizza, drank the worlds best coffee and now seen the worlds largest religious complex. check that off that list. We also met the worlds most annoying children but more on that later.
We started our Cambodian leg of the Temple Death March (tm Kate) by visiting Beng Mealea which is 80km east of Siem Reap. This temple, like Ta Prohm, has been left to nature and features some great nature reclaiming architecture photo ops. However I think its much cooler than Ta Prohm for several reasons 1) theres far far less tourists, 2) Less scammers 3) the temple is much bigger.
Angkor Wat. After swatting off the armys of kids selling 3 dollar water and guidebooks, some of whom seemed to be insinuating that if we didn’t buy anything they wouldn’t watch our bikes, which could translate to “we will steal them”. Nothing happened though.
