Tag Archives: Grand Canyon National Park

May 6, 2022 · 3:45 am

Fun Fact Friday, May 6, 2022

*One Heck Of A North Rim View, Grand Canyon National Park (Arizona)*

It’s Fun Fact Friday, and since the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is set to open this month, I thought I’d put a few fun facts out here about this part of Grand Canyon National Park:

The North Rim is 1,000 feet higher in elevation than the South Rim. That means it’s cooler, wetter, and there are far more trees – so many, in fact, that I found it difficult to get an unencumbered photo of the canyon landscape because of all the trees.

If you are standing at the South Rim looking toward the North Rim, the distance (as the crow flies) is about 10 miles. If you choose to hike from the South Rim to the North Rim, the distance to get there is 21 miles. And if you want to drive from the south to the north, you’ll be taking the “scenic route” and it will take you about five hours to get to the North Rim.

Only about 10% of all visitors to this national park ever make it up to the North Rim, so it’s much less visited – although that doesn’t mean it won’t be crowded at times. Plus, there is only one lodge up there: Grand Canyon Lodge, and one campground (although there are other campgrounds outside the park boundary).

This image was captured at one of the two small view areas below the Grand Canyon Lodge. I spent a couple of days at the North Rim during my move from Texas to Washington state.

Click on the image above if you are interested in purchasing a print.

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Filed under Fun Fact Friday, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, North Rim, Photography

Tagged as Fun Fact Friday, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, landscape, landscape photography, National Park, North Rim, photography, summer, summer monsoon, where the trails take you

March 31, 2022 · 4:04 am

It’s Throwback Thursday!

It’s #ThrowbackThursday , so I thought I’d post an image captured by my father of Mom, my two sisters, and me in Grand Canyon National Park back in the early 1960’s. Note the cameras hanging around my sisters’ necks, my mother’s handbag, and me in my little dress – very fashionable for a national park visit back then. I must have been 2 or 3 years old at the time.

I’m trying to figure out what part of the park we were in for this shot, since it appears to be down by the river? I *know* good and well we did not hike all the way down there. Our fashion for the day precluded any boots with good tread and doesn’t look like we were carrying any water with us. Maybe this is just a stream and not the Colorado River.

I don’t remember anything at all about this trip. Of course, who does at that age – except for maybe an exceptional few who remember stuff at a very early age? Mom was scared half to death I might fall over the side of the canyon, so she usually kept a deathly-tight grip on my little hand and never once let me go near the edge to see the view. So I guess you could say my first *real* view of the Grand Canyon was when I visited it on my own back in 2009.

I’m awfully glad my parents loved to travel and loved the national parks. They passed that love of travel, photography, the parks, and being outdoors on to me.

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Filed under family, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, Photography

Tagged as 1960s, family, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, National Park, photography, Throwback Thursday, where the trails take you

November 12, 2019 · 9:28 am

Summer Afternoon Monsoons Over The North Rim

I’ve finished working on cleaning up and adding key words to all of the images in my Grand Canyon gallery on my website. Yay me! Actually, this is something I should have been doing years ago so potential customers could run decent searches on my photos. Now, it’s going to take months to give all my images keywords so potential customers can run searches. I’ve started cleaning up the Mount Rainier gallery … All 200+ photos in there. Hoo boy!

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Filed under Arizona, Canon, Canon Lens, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, North Rim, Photography, Seasons, summer, Travel

Tagged as afternoon, Arizona, Canon, canyon, clouds, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon NP, monsoon, National Park, rain, rugged, steep, summer, travel, where the trails take you

May 9, 2019 · 7:49 am

Waiting For Sunrise In HDR

Waiting for sunrise on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

In an article I wrote for future publication in the National Parks Traveler, I mention HDR, what it is, and what it produces. I had to create an example, so I used the free download of Photomatix. I’ve used Photomatix before, pretty much with all the computers I’ve ever owned. Of course, I didn’t have it on this laptop I’m currently using, so I bought it and downloaded it in order to not have their watermark show up on the finished product. While I am not a huge fan of HDR, I will admit it can produce some very nice results, if the hand wielding the preset controls is judicious with the edits. Most of the time, though, I see more overdone HDR images than nice, naturalistic HDR images. Practice makes perfect, in everything including working with HDR, so I’ll be working on this aspect of photography a little more, hence today’s example.

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Filed under 24-70mm f2.8L II, 5DSR, Arizona, Canon, Canon Lens, Grand Canyon National Park, HDR, National Parks, North Rim, Photography, Seasons, summer, sunrise, Travel

Tagged as 24-70mm, 5DS-R, 5DSR, Canon, canyon, geology, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, HDR, July, landscape, landscape photography, morning, North Rim, photography, Photomatix, Rebecca Latson Photography, rebeccalatsonphotography, summer, sunrise, travel

April 23, 2019 · 7:59 am

A 1,000-Foot Difference

My latest Photography In The National Parks column has been published in the National Parks Traveler, offering tips and techniques for great photography along the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

To read the article, click on the image above.

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Filed under Arizona, Canon, Canon Lens, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, National Parks Traveler, North Rim, Photography, Photography In The National Parks, Seasons, summer, Travel

Tagged as Arizona, Canon, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, National Park, national parks, National Parks Traveler, North Rim, photography, Photography In The National Parks, Rebecca Latson Photography, rebeccalatsonphotography, travel

January 20, 2019 · 9:35 am

I Beseech Thee

Sometimes, I capture a photo for one reason, only to find the composition looks completely different when I download it to my laptop to start editing it. This image, for instance, was photographed when I visited the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, this past July. All I wanted was a nice little leading line shot of the Bright Angel Point path with the moon in the distance. What I ended up really noticing during the editing process was that tree, which reminded me of Tolkien’s Ent, arms upraised, beseeching Nature to bring back the Entwives.

Or, perhaps, during this political climate, this tree is beseeching the government to end the shutdown and bring back the National Park Service workers to help clean up and protect the national parks. I’ve been reading so many stories about stupid people trashing the parks, and I, myself, am heading to Olympic National Park later this coming week, on assignment for the National Parks Traveler. I have no idea what I will find. I figure the beaches will still be easy to access, but I might not be able to get to the park’s interior rain forest due to downed trees blocking the road. And I wonder what kind of trash there will be – if any. Guess I’ll find out in a few days.

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Filed under Canon, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, National Parks Traveler, North Rim, Photography

Tagged as Bright Angel Point Trail, Canon, Ent, government shutdown, Grand Canyon National Park, hike, National Park, photography, Rebecca Latson Photography, rebeccalatsonphotography, trail, tree

July 27, 2018 · 5:56 am

Distant Storm Clouds And Forest Fires On The North Rim

After my visit to Petrified Forest National Park, in eastern Arizona, I drove west and then north to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, where I stayed for a couple of days. During that time, small forest fires broke out and distant thunderstorms showed up (it’s the summer monsoon season in the West and Southwest). I could see all of this from a small overlook perched just below the Grand Canyon Lodge.

I happened to overhear a visitor mention that he really liked the North Rim better than the South Rim because they could do so much more on the North Rim. I thought about that for a moment, and decided that he was correct. Granted, there are more stoppable view areas and more services and infrastructure at the South Rim. This, of course, means more people and more tour buses. However, for do-able trails that don’t require hiking waaaaay down into the canyon and then waaaay back up, I’d say the North Rim wins. In terms of beauty and great photography, both areas tie for that position, I think.

The North Rim is 1,000 feet higher in elevation than the South Rim, and it’s far more forested, sitting on the Kaibab Plateau. If you visit, then be on the lookout for a small bison herd that comes through the park along Hwy 67, and see if you can spot the beautiful and unusual Kaibab squirrel. I was lucky enough to see both, but only lucky enough to photograph the bison herd.

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Filed under Arizona, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, North Rim, Photography, Seasons, summer, Travel

Tagged as Canon, geology, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon NP, July, landscape, North Rim, photography, Rebecca Latson Photography, rebeccalatsonphotography, road trip, summer

April 22, 2013 · 10:17 am

National Parks Traveler Essential Friends + Gateways

Woo hoo, folks! Check it out. You already know I write a monthly column for the National Parks Traveler website. Well, their 2013 National Parks Traveler Essential Friends + Gateways web magazine is out and my photos feature prominwently. Check out pg 10 (the Grand Canyon pic), pages 22 – 24 (those photos for the Glacier Park spread are mine!), and that full pg 26 photo of the Grand Canyon is mine! Ok, and aside from my photographic pride, this is a very cool magazine with lots of neat items and articles. Just click on the hyperlink to the magazine then click the “Expand” button to get a full-screen view of the magazine.

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Filed under Glacier National Park MT, Grand Canyon National Park, Landscape, National Parks, Photography, South Rim, Travel, Travel and Photography

Tagged as Glacier, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, National Park, National Parks Traveler, Rebecca Latson Photography, travel, web magazine, website

February 24, 2012 · 1:04 pm

Black & White

I’ve created an album on my website (via SmugMug) specifically for monochrome (mainly black & white) photos.

This photo is titled: Stormy Scene at Pima Point, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ.

That day at the park was amazing, with the weather changing every three hours from snow flurries to snow storm to clear sunny skies with fluffy white clouds to dramatic frowning stormclouds and rain showers in the distance. I felt really lucky to be standing in that spot at that time….and I was the only photographer there! Everybody else had high-tailed it back to the shuttle bus to try and make it to Hermit’s Rest before the storm hit.

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Filed under Black & White, Grand Canyon National Park, Photography, South Rim

Tagged as black & white, black and white, bw, clouds, drama, dramatic, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon NP, monochrome, National Park, photography, Pima Point, storm, travel