Southern California

  • Finding Light in Pinnacles National Park

    Bymichael

    Some landscapes become part of our imagination through the surprise of their existence. Pinnacles National Park sits about 80 miles south of San Jose in the Gabilan Mountains of central California, and most people who have driven Highway 101 through the Salinas Valley have passed within 30 miles of it without knowing it was there. It became a national park in 2013, elevated from national monument status, and it remains one of the least visited parks in California despite being within day trip distance of the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

  • Storm Light in Channel Islands National Park

    Bymichael

    I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway and remember islands visible from the road — though whether those were the Channel Islands or the more prominent Catalina Island closer to shore is genuinely uncertain from memory. The Channel Islands sit further out, 25 miles offshore from Ventura, and their distance from the coast is precisely what makes them extraordinary. Twenty-five miles of open Pacific creates a separation from the California mainland that feels, once you arrive on the islands, like a complete departure from the world you left behind at the harbor.

  • The Light at Joshua Tree National Park

    Bymichael

    Some landscapes become part of our imagination long before we ever visit them. Joshua Tree is one of those — the surreal silhouettes of the trees against a fading sky, the stacked boulder formations that look arranged rather than geological, the sense of a landscape that operates by rules different from anywhere else. I had seen those images for years before I finally drove through the park.

  • Chasing Light in Death Valley National Park

    Bymichael

    As I write this, my social media feed is full of images from Death Valley that look nothing like the park I drove through. The super bloom is happening — the desert floor covered in wildflowers in colors that seem impossible for a place that receives less than two inches of rain in an average year. Gold and purple and white across the valley floor, the Panamint Mountains behind them, the salt flats of Badwater Basin in the distance. Every image is better than the last one. The most spectacular wildflower display since 2016, by most accounts. And I am not there.