The Season That Never Ends... And A Free Download (Or Two) For Paid Subscribers
Lots of exciting travel and chasing moments to recap from 2023
Hey all, it’s been a while.
When I tell you that I have been completely swamped this summer, that may just be an understatement. Let me paint a picture for you:
In June and July, I embarked upon a grand adventure to explore the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to southwestern Washington, and then work my way inland to explore some of the Cascade volcanoes, a handful of Oregon’s beautiful waterfalls, and everything in between.
It was a cathartic, once-in-a-lifetime vacation, and while storms were going gangbusters back home in Colorado virtually the entire time, I was connected enough from social media that I didn’t see much of it. And, I was pretty unbothered at the time, because this experience was a dream.
I wanted to immerse myself in every second of it.
I fell in love with so many beautiful places and so many quaint coastal towns, I honestly never wanted to return home. Driving the Historic Highway 1 along the coast, drifting in and out of a thick coastal fog that clung to the trees and crawled over the hillsides and mountains surrounding me was nothing less than surreal.
If you’ve never driven this historic, incredible highway, I highly urge you to do so. It’s truly something from a dream.
It’s hard to narrow down a favorite location from this trip because there were so many moments that stole my breath away, but this viewpoint was certainly at the top of the ranks. I’m purposely withholding some of these locations because some are not well known and I don’t want to draw crowds there. But… man. What a sight.
I could have stayed at this spot for hours. Days. Forever.
I crossed so many of my dream photography locations off of my bucket list, this one in particular was top of the list for my MUST-see lighthouses.
Isn’t it beautiful?! To capture this perspective, you have to hop over the fence below and hike up a very steep trail that is not maintained and thus completely overgrown with thickets, all while the cliffside drops into the ocean below right next to you.
When I tell you my heart was RACING as I climbed to this vantage point.
But I was determined to get this shot, and boy, was it worth the climb.
Ok, I’m getting carried away with sharing shots with you all, but can you blame me? You, my subscribers, are the first to see many of these shots.
The image above was captured in Redwoods National Park, which is absolutely to die for, and you must visit if you’re ever in northern California.
This shot of a tree backlit by the sun was an absolute dream shot for me. I couldn’t believe the nearly perfect symmetry in this scene.
I have many more images I want to share from this trip, but I’ll close for now with an image of the incredible Crater Lake. I’ve never seen such deep blue in a lake in all my life. It was surreal.
But for now, back to storms.
2023 Severe Weather Season
I have quite a lot of thoughts about this season, some of which I’ll share below, and some of which I’ll elaborate on further when I do a full recap later. These recaps usually include video, if I can ever find the time to edit.
I’ve been sort of drowning in work and trying to catch up after my trip, and even as I try to get back in my groove, severe weather and tornadoes continue seemingly daily or weekly, especially in my “backyard” - basically, anywhere in Eastern Colorado.
Funny enough, though, I did manage to head out for a local chase last Saturday and witnessed a beautiful tornado near Peyton, Colorado, which is about 20 minutes northeast of my home. One of the closest tornadoes to my home that I can recall.
That image is a very VERY cropped-in shot from my Nikon D850. Of course, the one time I leave my telephoto lens at home (thinking I won’t need it), I witness a gorgeous tornado over elevated terrain from a distance of maybe 5-7 miles. I definitely needed a telephoto lens.
Here’s another shot from a bit further back.
I still can’t believe I saw a tornado so close to home.
After this tornado and the funnel that formed shortly thereafter had both dissipated, I moved south to intercept some newly tornado-warned cells that were moving southeast across Colorado Springs.
I initially dodged some golfball-sized hail as I pushed south ahead of the storm toward Hanover, thinking I had time to cut back west to I-25 to drop south again. But the storm surged ahead rapidly, and I found myself directly in the hook as I was attempting to blast west. So, I retraced my steps back east into Hanover, found a church (one of few structures in this tiny town), and positioned on the south side of it in an attempt to block myself from the hail coming from the north.
I dodged the baseballs more or less until one rogue baseball-sized hailstone cratered my windshield. Oops.
But after the storm passed, I looked up, and my jaw dropped.
This is easily one of the most beautiful stormscapes I’ve ever witnessed.
As I mentioned, I’m going to do a full recap of the chase season soon, but I wanted to share a few highlights before I do.
While 2023 went off like a rocket from the get-go with amazing tornadoes as early as January, my personal chase season began officially in March. I feel like I spent more time chasing in the DFW metroplex this spring than I ever have in all my previous seasons COMBINED. And I hope to not have to do so again any time soon.
Traffic = stress. That is all.
But I was determined to get as many chases in before my tours started (and the real work began) as possible.
Truthfully, I probably wasted too much time and too many resources chasing these early-season setups (that mostly amounted to nothing). And every year, I say I’m going to save my money for late spring High Plains setups and conserve resources for June/July chasing.
And every single year, I find myself being too damn impatient to wait while chasable setups drift by, one after the next. It’s seemingly impossible for me to sit still, be patient, and wait for better setups. Especially when the season starts off with a bang like 2023 did and I miss a lot of really great early-season tornadoes.
But such is the way of chasing life.
I did get a handful of “meh” tornadoes in March and April, but nothing to write home about until my tours kicked off.
But truthfully, this year was not a tornado year for me. It was, however, definitely a structure year. The southern High Plains lit up like fireworks in a way I’ve never seen in all my 12 years of chasing, and man, it was glorious to witness so many spectacular storms in New Mexico.
Oh, and I took my very first drone shots of a storm on this day! Check them out!
Sometimes I just can’t believe how fortunate I am to witness the sights and storms that I do. It’s just extraordinary, and if you’d told me 15 years ago that I’d one day see the incredible storms that I’ve seen, I’d never have believed you.
I think that’s a good enough teaser for the time being, much trust me, I have much more in store.
But now, something fun for my paid subscribers: you guessed it, it’s time for a free download! and actually, it’s two! Scroll on down for your freebies, and I hope you love these images as much as I do. I decided to mix it up with one landscape image from my trip and one storm image from this season. Enjoy!
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