On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Before we get to these stunning pictures from BigJimSlade…
I’d like to say a little bit about where we’ll go from here.On the Road: Week of July 20 (5 am)
Albatrossity – Homer Alaska
Auntie Anne – Random Places in Paris
?BillinGlendaleCA – Comet NEOWISE
dmbeaster – Mt. Whitney
feloniousferb – Ramona Falls, OregonOn the Road After Dark: Week of July 20 (10pm)
Because there are 8 posts from frosty’s adventure on the road during the Days of COVID, I thought a little continuity would be helpful. So we will do 4 this week After Dark, and 4 After Dark the following week. Sound okay?
Okay, back to these enchanting photos. First we get the panoramic view, then clouds and mountains and flowers! Love the little dots of
red flowers, oops, I mean people, on the rocks.
BigJimSlade
Last time I posted pictures from the ridge up above our neighborhood… this time let’s go on a little virtual vacation. I have the Flickr extension for Chrome which loads a picture into any new window/tab. I started seeing these fantastic pictures of a place called Tre Cime (it just translates to 3 peaks). I decided that we had to go there! So, these pictures are from our 2018 trip to Italy, 4 days of which my wife and I spent hiking in the Dolomites. It is such an incredibly scenic area. Just junk food for the eyes everywhere you look. We stayed in Cortina (d’Ampezzo). We were supposed to go back next month, but, um, yeah.
The first day we drove into the valley for Passo Falzarego and did a reasonable (6 mile-ish) loop around Cinque Torri and enjoyed a delicious lunch at the hut that you can see at the far right of this pano.
That is Tofana di Rozes – we would be hiking on that side in 2 days. The weather was changing constantly, so different parts of the mountain were coming in and out of view. It was very dramatic!
These tiny light blue flowers were some of my favorites. You gotta keep your eyes open for the small stuff, too ;-)
Day 2. That’s yours truly and the reason for the trip – Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Again, the clouds were changing the scene every minute… I recommend taking a timeout and googling Tre Cime and hit the images tab.
Here you can see people doing “via ferrata” (way of iron). It’s the adventure climbing where you don’t have to be a hardcore rock climber. We just stick to normal trails, but if I knew about these 20 years ago, I probably would’ve been pretty excited!
Quite a pretty little thing.
This is Tofana di Rozes. Can you see the little dots on the top – those are people!
This is from a pass underneath Tofana di Rozes, looking back to where we hiked 2 days before. You can see a Cinque Torri (you can’t quite count all 5 towers from this angle) just above the person in the red jacket in the middle. It’s the ridge in the mid-distance, not the far background.
Not far from here we saw a rescue helicopter land – that via ferrata stuff is risky….
Fair Economist
What spectacular scenery! Great pics too. I was hoping to see some of the Apennines when I took the train from Rome to Venice but it was pretty much all tunnels through the mountainous areas, and foggy as well. Guess I’ll have to go back to Italy when this is over. Poor me.
Laura Too
Beautiful! Thanks, I needed something to keep from going to a very dark place with all the days news. And Watergirl, I’d follow you anywhere! You are doing a wonderful job of giving us respite.
Mathguy
Beautiful. My favorite part of the Giro d’Italia is when the reach the Dolomites and climb the legendary passes like the Stelvio or Gavia.
sdhays
Gorgeous!
PsiFighter37
Love the Dolomites. Went there in 2017 for a week and was supposed to go back for 8 nights this summer until the pandemic hit and the US screwed the pooch on getting it under control.
Mary G
I’m loving having these twice a day.
eclare
The scenery in that last photo is gorgeous!
Wag
Beautiful photos! My wife and I traveled through the Dolomites while she was pregnant with our twins. We didn’t get to go hiking, but the scenery was spectacular. I’d love to go back.
J R in WV
BigJimSlade — what a great bunch of photos. I especially like how you go from the giant mountain spire, suddenly to a Macro shot of a tiny alpine flower, just a wonderful photo set.
Thanks for doing the work to submit these great pictures for all of us to share in with you ~!!~
NobodySpecial
Who knew my favorite Kansas City tight end would also be a great photographer? Nice snaps!
arrieve
Oh I want to go there! Thank you so much for the virtual visit.
StringOnAStick
So beautiful, thanks! We went to the Dolomites 6 years ago to climb some via ferratas, but from the area around Corvara. Our best climb was through a long spiral tunnel built by the Italians in WWI to place explosives under the Austrian encampment at the top of the cliff face. The Austrians figured out what the plan was and bugged out; the remains of the stacked stone shelters they’d been living in and the incredible cold in the winter there (it’s ski areas all around) gave me a profound respect for the suffering of the soldiers on all sides there.
susanna
Visually, a feast for the wandering eyes and I was there, in imagination alone. I What an enveloping set of pictures and all ‘outside.’ Thank you for this welcome respite.
BigJimSlade
Hey everybody – thanks for all the kind words :-) I was away for the weekend so I wasn’t online… because I was in Yosemite! My wife and I hiked the Four Mile Trail, the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls, explored the valley floor, and enjoyed Glacier Point. So maybe I’ll set up another On The Road once I go through the pictures.
BigJimSlade
@Fair Economist: Thanks, and yes, you’ll just have to go back to Italy!
BigJimSlade
@Laura Too: Thank you!
BigJimSlade
@Mathguy: Thanks!
BigJimSlade
@sdhays: Thanks!
BigJimSlade
@PsiFighter37: Yeah, we were supposed to go too, making a loop from southern Germany, into Austria, into Italy and then back up. So instead of 2 weeks there, we got 3.5 days in Yosemite… still not bad!
@eclare: Thank you!
@Wag: Thank you! And yes, you’ll have to go back.
@J R in WV: Thanks! When I first got my camera 5 years ago before a trip to Kauai, I was trying to learn how to use it and flowers were the best subjects around on our hikes locally :-)
@NobodySpecial: Yeah, well, when I crouch down to take pictures of the tiny flowers, my knees hurt quite a bit… and thanks!
@arrieve: My pleasure – I highly recommend going!
@StringOnAStick: Yeah, it is amazing to see where they managed to put guns and artillery what-not for WWI – way the hell up where I was going to go with just a small backpack! I would’ve loved the via ferrata 20-30 years ago, but now I stick to the trails.
@susanna: Glad you enjoyed them!
BigJimSlade
@arrieve: My pleasure!