Favorite Landscape Images of 2020

2020 was a year that most of us can not forget too soon. From shutdowns and lockdowns to overcrowded trails and campsites this year really tested us all. COVID shutdowns sent millions of Americans into the wilderness for their first time this year in an attempt to escape those shutdowns. This has really put a strain on both our natural resources and on people like me, who need the solitude and isolation that nature can provide. Those of us that spend most of our time in the remote outdoors suddenly found ourselves joined by first-timers looking for a socially distanced vacation. The pressures on nature by this massive influx of people have shown us a few things. One, we need even more protected spaces. Two, it is absolutely imperative that we continue to protect the public lands we currently have. Over the last few years in Nevada and Utah, tens of thousands of acres of public land, from BLM land to National Monument lands have been sold off for development or, in the case of Utah’s Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, been ceded to mining companies for pennies an acre. The excuse is usually that these are remote, under-utilized lands that could better be put to work for our economy. This year, those so-called under-utilized lands have been flooded with people looking for an escape. Some of us NEED the ability to get away from people for our own mental health and this year that has been quite the challenge.

We start this year in pictures with New Year’s Eve. We had no idea what was coming! By the time the ski resorts shut down in March and the cities closed for business, it felt like the entire Bay Area had escaped to their Lake Tahoe second homes. Many never went back. Around Lake Tahoe, luxury home sales are up 52% over 2019 and the median price is up nearly 20%, while elsewhere prices are tanking and people are fighting to avoid eviction. As a result, Tahoe trails and beaches were crowded this year in a way that we had never seen before. To avoid the crowds, my wife and I packed up the Tacoma and headed to remote northern Nevada, traveling sometimes for hundreds of miles on dirt roads where we were able to escape the crowds and explore some areas that were new to us. To purchase or license these images or any of more than 10,000 images please check out my online, keyword-searchable image archive.

New Year’s Eve fireworks over Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe near Reno.

Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe as seen by drone shortly after all the ski resorts shut down due to the pandemic.

Multi-image panoramic photograph of Secret Cove at Lake Tahoe shortly after a March Snowfall. I turned this image into a puzzle that sold quite well in April and allowed us to continue to pay rent and keep the lights on. If you are interested in a custom, high quality original puzzle, let me know, I still have a few left.

Lake Tahoe in clearing storm with snow covered trees and snow and dramatic sky.

One of the first large snowfalls in March, shortly after all the ski resorts shut down.

Three AM milky way shot over Emerald Bay. This was near the end of March when things were at their worst. The influx of people fleeing the big cities and heading to the lake had finally come to a head in South Lake Tahoe, where they imposed a curfew and shut down all rentals. I nearly got arrested making this picture all by myself in the freezing cold with nobody around for at least 20 miles because I was violating a curfew that was intended to keep people from congregating together. Luckily this officer had some common sense and let me keep shooting.

I made it to the Lake once this summer for a sunset shot. The crowds of people around me even in this lesser known remote area has kept me from going back since.

Since gyms were closed, my wife and I took to doing mid-week hikes up Mt. Rose if we were at home. This is the view from the top looking back across the Tahoe Rim Trail. This image is also now a giant wall covering at a local bank.

Brief thunderstorm in the Black Rock desert.

Aerial image of small creek and salt-crusted grass and weeds out in the remote Black Rock Desert.

People have an image of the playa as smooth, but when you get closer to the mountains, you can still see some of the signs of winter runoff.

Smokey sunset over a sea stack on a beach along the remote scenic drive in the small fishing community of Trinidad on California’s Pacific coast. The wildfires were another huge issue this summer. Smoke from the fires burning in California and Oregon choked us out in Reno for weeks at a time. My friends down in Mammoth had it even worse with over a month of air quality in the hazardous range. Mostly I didn’t take pictures in the smoke, I had enough of that in my days covering wildfires as a newspaper photojournalist, but the smoke caught up to us here before we pushed farther north.

Full moon and sunrise on the Calico Mountain Wilderness area in the Black Rock desert.

One of my favorite playa details, black and white image of the cracked earth.

This was a wonderful surprise. Monique and I had spent several days deep in the Sheldon National Wildlife refuge where heavy rains and dirt roads had us stuck for a bit. But when we finally made it out to a graded dirt road that passed by this normally barren playa, I got my first look at a playa in spring, and was surprised by the wildflowers.

An aerial view of the tail end of Little High Rock Canyon and the reservoir of the same name.

Not a plant, we actually came across what we assume is a female bighorn sheep skull in a remote canyon on the eastern edge of the Black Rock Desert.

High Rock Canyon, a rugged jeep trail goes through this remote canyon that was part of the Lassen-Applegate pioneer route.

Sand Mountain near Fallon. One of the upsides of the shutdowns this year was that I was able to see this place for the first time in my life without hundreds of ATV’s crawling all over it. This is one of several images I made one evening but I liked the abstract feel of it best.

After making it through a winter of closed ski resorts and short, cold days the animals started having babies. We travelled around a bit in April and May searching for, and then revisiting any interesting nesting sites or animal dens we could find. What else was there to do? At this point we are all still not working.

Our local animal sanctuary, Animal Ark, closes in winter, except for 2 weekends, so we went down to check out some of the animals in their fuzzy winter coats. A sleepy kit fox lounges in a patch of sun.

Monique loves birds, so we made several visits to the remote Stillwater Wildlife Refuge over the winter and spring. Here are some baby hawks that were in a nest mixed in near a great blue heron rookery.

We discovered one of the largest great blue heron rookeries I had ever seen. Naturally we went back several times to see the progress of the chicks.

Closer to home we found a few great horned owl nests. Monique would make it part of her daily walk every day to go by and visit. If they were out of the nest, she would give me a call so I could take some pictures.

We followed a lot of really remote dirt roads through the Northern Nevada desert. One thing you can usually count on out there are wild horses.

Back to Animal Ark the second winter weekend they opened because it was the first time their new cheetah cubs were outside!

Last of the animal baby pictures, the merganser duck ferry is now departing.

Once the snow started clearing, we got our backpacks out and hit the trails. Initially we did a few warm up hikes close to home in the Desolation Wilderness area. We were utterly disgusted by the amount of people on these popular trails, and the trash left behind in the wilderness. This was not just a Tahoe problem, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Utah, you name it and people were getting out into nature for their first times this year and the trash left behind on trails nation wide has been a major problem this year, making headlines and even starting local protests against tourist in places like Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, which were hit hard by the Corona-cationers. So, we decided we had to go farther and more remote to find the quiet and solitude we needed. As such it was a great excuse to explore some of the more remote areas of the high sierra, such as bear lakes basin, which we accessed via some off-trail passes, one of which was pretty sketchy! I won’t say much about it here, since I already posted a detailed trip report on the Granite Park and Bear Lakes Basin.

Sunrise over Big Bear Lake with the seven gables in the background during a 5-day backpacking trip in Bear Lakes Basin in the High Sierra via the Pine Creek Trailhead and Italy Pass.

Some of these high alpine lakes were amazing shades of blue and green.

Hiking up out of Big Bear Lake with the Seven Gables in the background.

Nevada has some amazing petroglyph sites. This is one of the more remote ones.

Bristle Cone pine tree grove on top of Mt. Washington in Great Basin National Park.

Comet Neowise and bristlecones in Great Basin National Park.

Remote Bristecone pine tree grove and the milky way at Great Basin National Park.

Wildflowers in the Santa Rosa Mountains north of Winnemucca in remote Nevada.

Wildflowers and clearing storm near Jarbidge on the Nevada-Idaho border.

Sunset over a flooded forest in a remote reservoir in the Sierras.

As summer rolled on it began to feel like things might get back to normal. We actually packed up the trailer for the first time and figured we would attempt to deal with humanity in a socially distant way while revisiting some of our favorite places along the Pacific Coast. We found some amazing new favorites, and were appalled by what some of our old favorite haunts had turned into. You can read all the good and the bad of the places and see many more pictures from our Pacific Coast Trip here.

Sunset and tafoni rock formations along the California coast.

Necarney creek at Short Sands beach near the town of Cannon Beach, Oregon, USA.

Waterfall at Short Sands Beach in Oregon.

Dramatic early morning light and tide at Short Sands beach near the town of Cannon Beach, Oregon, USA.

A seal on the beach at Short Sands beach near the town of Cannon Beach, Oregon, USA.

Sand dunes at sunset at Nehalem bay state park beach

Detail of Sand dunes at sunset at Nehalem bay state park beach

With summer coming to an end, we were able to get back to work in a limited capacity, photographing a few weddings that had not postponed until next year, and several that had converted into outdoor elopements. However as fall hit, those were over so we decided to take a road trip in November to the desert southwest. This time my wife’s sister’s family came with and we decided to do something we never had done, rent a houseboat on Lake Powell, just our little family bubble. Well, we got really lucky. By mid November there was hardly another boat on the entire lake, and we got a week of warm, sunny weather while we were out there.

Favorite Landscape Images of 2020

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