August Photo Recap

Gisele on a Moody Whiteface Mountain

What seems like the rainiest summer I can remember, appears to be drawing to a close. Despite unexpectedly getting soaked to the bone on more than one occasion, I can’t be too angry because our Catskills lawn has never looked better! Continue reading

I Still Geek Out Over Old Trains

The rain has been no joke, this spring. The last two weekends in April it rained almost every day in our corner the Catskills. The last two weekends of the month, precipitation seemed merely to oscillate between drizzle and downpour, with little or no actual break. While this is awesome for all of the greenery that it starting to come out, I am not hardcore enough to get out for my typical outdoor activities when it is coming down like that, especially when the temps are still in the 30s and 40s.Continue reading

West Kill Mountain Winter Hike

On a recent snowy weekend, B and I hiked West Kill peak. It starts on a trail head that we have hiked many times in the past. Notably, it is the trail on which Diamond Notch Falls (see above photo) is located. The peak was mostly socked in. But the scenery along the trail was worth the effort. Continue reading

Kelly Hollow Winter Aerials

The Kelly Hollow trail is a nice little ~4 mile loop that is a fairly quick drive from our spot in the Catskills. I like this trail because it is easy enough that Lola can still make it the whole way on her geriatric little paws. It also has some nice scenery, despite being closed in on all sides by Millbrook Ridge (I think). B and I had never hiked it in the winter until recently, when some friends of ours were upstate for a holiday weekend. This is typically a pretty popular hike because the trail is so mellow. Amazingly, we did not encounter another soul on the trail that day. I launched the drone over the beaver pond located roughly at the halfway point on the trail. The pond was partially frozen over and had a very cool looking gradient from above. Another cool visual element was that the trees were only snowy above a certain elevation line, but not along the trail (see bottom photo). Here are a couple of the images (our party is in the lower right corner of the top photo, for reference).

MLK Day Hiking

B Enjoying the Views from Wittenberg

After getting off to a super snowy start, this winter has mellowed out considerably over the past several weeks. Apparently it’s not just the Catskills. I read today in Gothamist that we are in the fourth longest period in history (since they started keeping track) with no measurable snow in NYC. Not good for skiing, but not terrible for hiking, assuming that one chooses to ignore the potential future implications as they relate to the global climate. Or maybe it is just La Nina? But hey, it was a 3 day weekend, the weather was unseasonably warm and we took advantage by going on a very long hike!Continue reading

2022 Recap in Jake’s iPhone Photos

2022 was another super weird year. This time last year, I felt like 2022 was going to be the one where we would finally regain some post-pandemic “normalcy.” Welp, that kind of went out the window in February when all of the Ukraine stuff started. It seems like things just spiraled into bizzaro world from there. I can’t really complain from a personal perspective, other than about the anxiety caused from uncertainty of macro issues beyond my control. Overall, I consider myself very fortunate to have had another year of meaningful experiences and personal growth. Met some very cool people and spent time with people I love.Continue reading

Random Set of Film Scans

Moon Lake, Utah– June 2016

I recently received a huge batch of scans of 35mm film shot over the past 5-6 years. I tried out a new (to me) lab for processing called Dark Slide. It is a one-lady owned and operated lab out of CT. I read about them on Field Mag and decided to give them a shot. I mailed in two rolls of Velvia 100 and one roll of Porto slide film in Sept. It took a while to get the results (and I’m still waiting on the prints/slides). But hey, these exposed rolls were sitting on my desk for about year. So what is another six weeks? Haha. Anyway, the scans came back in high resolution .tif format. I have exported a few to JPEG and posted them here. Mega gallery below-Continue reading