Lassen National Park

Lassen is located in Northern California, a fairly easy 3 hour drive from Sacramento. It is one of the least visited parks in California and has wildflowers, waterfalls, hiking, wildlife, and dark skies for star gazing. 

Summer wildflowers in one of the many meadows 

Glacial erratic and Milky Way

Kings Creek Falls

Davenport State Beach

Davenport is just north of famous Santa Cruz on Highway 1. It is easy to drive right by the state beach, but it has really cool rock formations making for great sunsets. 

Davenport Beach sunset 

Hole in the Wall Beach

Butano State Park

Butano State Park has a nice campground and miles of hiking trails through forests. While the tress are not as grand as in Redwoods NP, there is plenty to photograph and the lack of crowds make it even more pleasant. 

Forest detail

Hiking path

Trailside creek

Mojave National Monument

Mojave is located in Southern California, sandwiched in between Joshua Tree National Park, to its south, and Death Valley National Park to its north. At first glance, there isn't much about Mojave that is terribly exciting but between the lava tubes, joshua trees, sand dunes, and soda lakes, there are some good photo opportunities to be had. 

Lava Tube

Joshua Tree sunset

Soda Lake and approaching storm 

Trona Pinnacles

Trona Pinnacles is a bit off the beaten path, near the town of Ridgecrest, just south west of Death Valley National Park. It can get extremely windy here, but the good news is these rock formations aren't going anywhere. This area feels like you are on the moon. 

Pinnacles and star trails

Pinnacle moon like terrain

Pinnacles panorama

Rhyolite Ghost Town

Rhyolite Ghost town, near Beatty Nevada is home to several buildings from the gold rush that swept through this area in the early 1900's. This is also the site of the Goldwell Open Air Museum, featuring interesting sculptures that are especially fun to photograph after dark. 

Cook Bank Building and star trails 

Goldwell sculpture with bike

"The last supper" sculpture at sunset

The "New Wave"

Hundreds of people enter a lottery to get permits to hike the famous Wave near Page Arizona every single day. With only 20 permits awarded each day, that leaves a lot of disappointed hikers, but there is an area not far from the Wave called "The New Wave" because the rock formations resemble those on the much sought after hike. I only saw one other couple the evening I was here. 

New Wave sunburst

Moon rising above New Wave

New Wave night skies and light painting

Deer Creek Oaks Woodland Preserve

Deer Creek is located near Sloughhouse, California. This area is managed by the Sacramento Valley Conservancy, and they do require a permit to enter, but they make it pretty easy and are super friendly and helpful while you hike the hills. I come out each spring and while I do see people out there, it's generally pretty quiet and I'm able to take a lot of photos of the oaks, rolling hills, and wildflowers. 

Pond at Deer Creek Oaks

Rolling hills and oaks

Oak silhouette 

Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve

This preserve is located outside Sacramento in the community of Carmichael and is home to a wide variety of wildlife. When it is foggy, there are opportunities for landscape photography as well. 

Black Tail Deer

Foggy morning 

Turkey in full plumage