The "non-iconic and hard to get to" thread

Inspired by this excellent post by jmw4: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4491751

Let's post images of places that aren't iconic views, and that took some effort to get to.

Effort can vary depending on age and physical condition, and it might involve research as well, not just hard trekking. Tell the story!

To start: this is taken during a skitouring trip to Lofoten. We toured up about 700m from sea-level (with no other way to get there) and the harder part was coming down safely! Bit of the Arctic Ocean visible in the background.

I've posted another version a while ago here, but I prefer the processing here:




The Notch



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Lettchworth State Park, NY and the Genesee River Gorge.

Great idea Cedric!

I'm not going to share the specific location, other than to give a Canadian province, this shot was taken in rural Newfoundland.

In the winter months they don't tend to run jet aircraft to Gander (due to lack of customers), so you usually end up taking a Beechcraft 1900D from St Johns. I'd prefer to drive, since the landings can be a little traumatic at that time of year, but since the idea is to visit relatives there for Christmas, and the road can be impassable from time to time, we usually end up taking the flying coffin

Best overheard conversation on that flight: "Mummy why do we have to wear seatbelts?", "They're for our safety sweetheart"... Fast forward to the end of the flight and a somewhat forlorn child says "Well now I know why we wear seatbelts mummy". In addition to the usual turbulence we hit a microburst at the start of final approach. One minute the runway was nicely visible through the flight deck. Next minute it was a lot closer and at jaunty 45° out of the left window. Needless to say we were very lucky we experience it any later!


Rural Newfoundland at -18°C

Thank you, and beautiful eerie shot!

I spend a lot of time in Mexico, and there are a lot of out of way places there. There are some fantastic Mexican landscape photographers, but they don't often share the locations when asked on Instagram.

I saw a photo of an old hacienda with the massive Pico de Orizaba mountain in the background. Location unknown. I Google image searched it and found one reference to a nearby town. I then used Google Earth and after staring at satellite view for a bit, located the hacienda on a narrow road far out of town. I put it on a list of "visit someday places."

Someday came in March, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was getting started. I had cobbled together a bunch of places to see and flew into Puebla with a goal of photographing them. I moved from Puebla to a small town about 2.5 hours east, close to Pico de Orizaba. The next morning, I got up and could see that it was quite clear (sometimes the mountain is obscured), so I went out to find a cab.

It was maybe too early, and there weren't any cabs around. I killed 30 minutes, and then found one next to the bus station. I showed him a picture of the hacienda, he had no idea where it was. I told him it was east of yet another small town, and asked him how much to take me, wait for a bit, then drive me back. It was only 200 pesos (~$10). No problem.

We drove to the even smaller town, which was really just a crossroads of small houses and stray dogs. He couldn't really understand my Google map, so we asked someone on the street, and were pointed out into the countryside. About ten minutes later, we found the hacienda.



There were some rather ominous signs around the place about trespassing, so I shot it from the road. I was pretty happy with this, though I'm generally the sort of person who prefers sunrise or sunset photos at not 10am or 11am light. It would have been more difficult to arrange that. Hey, maybe I'll go back someday...

The sad end to this story happened a few hours later when I slipped and fell and tore my quadriceps tendon. I had to leave Mexico, fly home, have surgery, and nearly 3 months later I am just starting to be able to walk without crutches. Looking at this photo makes my knee hurt..

jaggedhorizon said:

Inspired by this excellent post by jmw4: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4491751

Let's post images of places that aren't iconic views, and that took some effort to get to.

Effort can vary depending on age and physical condition, and it might involve research as well, not just hard trekking. Tell the story!

To start: this is taken during a skitouring trip to Lofoten. We toured up about 700m from sea-level (with no other way to get there) and the harder part was coming down safely! Bit of the Arctic Ocean visible in the background.

I've posted another version a while ago here, but I prefer the processing here:


The Notch

Click to expand...

Christmas in May. I see Grinch in this photograph.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: I do hereby grant permission to any DPReview member to retouch or edit any of my personal photos which I submit on these forums. All I ask, is that you respect my Copyright in return.

jaggedhorizon said:

Inspired by this excellent post by jmw4: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4491751

Let's post images of places that aren't iconic views, and that took some effort to get to.

Effort can vary depending on age and physical condition, and it might involve research as well, not just hard trekking. Tell the story!

To start: this is taken during a skitouring trip to Lofoten. We toured up about 700m from sea-level (with no other way to get there) and the harder part was coming down safely! Bit of the Arctic Ocean visible in the background.

I've posted another version a while ago here, but I prefer the processing here:


The Notch

Click to expand...

Some seriously excellent photography in this thread. So stoked to be seeing something totally new!

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Long Distance Hiker: AT, PCT, CTx2, TMB, TRT
Galleries: www.jaredweberphotography.com
Instagram: Jared.M.Weber

This location isn't hard to get to at all ... if you don't mind spending a couple of hours wandering country roads with no signage whatsoever directing you to this place. It's possibly the oldest grove of cypress trees on the East Coast ... in Southern Maryland near the North shore of the Potomac River.


Battle Creek Cypress Sanctuary, Southern Maryland

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Landscaper
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"Draw me a picture of an island without any seas;
show me a map of the whole world without boundaries."

Now this locale IS hard to get to. It requires making a bone jarring 45 minute drive up a mountain from Ophir, Colorado in a 4x4 at 5 mph. It's in the site of an old gold mining camp that was the first industrial application of Tesla's alternate current electrical generation, funded by George Westinghouse.


Mining cabin view, Alta, Colorado

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Landscaper
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"Draw me a picture of an island without any seas;
show me a map of the whole world without boundaries."

Tusheti - Georgia



I went to Georgia on RnR from Afghanistan - while working for an NGO - and although it was close to winter, I really wanted to check out this trekking area called Tusheti (pictured above). Spent seven hours in a 4x4 (only because it broke down, I think it would have been 4.5 otherwise) we arrived at Omalo and prepared to trek the next day. This photo was taken the second morning of the trek outside of Dartlo when the sun was rising over an old watchtower (the region is famous for these). This photo is a bit soft, but I love the composition.

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All the best,
TBri
https://www.flickr.com/people/130803098@N05/

this is gorgeous, would love to visit there! color and lighting are fantastic. thanks.

Great idea. This is a non-iconic view of Milford Sound, NZ. The iconic shots are all of the towering fjords and waterfalls. This is a shot of the forest that grows on the side of these cliffs taken early morning from a zodiac raft .

nice shot, John!

Does this count



2 boat trips from the main land, a short walk and scramble down.










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I already posted this in 2018 but I think it matches this thread quite well . The effort was to stomp through deep, wet snow. So the hike takes about twice as long. That's not really unusual in winter. The thaw in January is.


Thaw and Mist

Here is the whole story and my translation:

"The beauty of our nature is that there are no repetitions. Even after countless walks the same hike is not boring. Always changing conditions provide tension. When thawing gradually releases the ground under the thick snow cover in spring, the change is particularly strong. A change in the weather also provides variation, or when the nightly fog rises and dissipates slowly. Despite the warm temperatures, there is a lot of snow in the mountains this winter, but the thaw starts in January - at least temporarily. Due to the heavy rain of the past days, the snow is very wet and the moisture creates tough fog fields which you can escape only slowly. Finally, the shoes are completely soaked and the knee-deep snow forces you to turn back - next time I'll take the snowshoes with me."

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Regards,
CP

1Dx4me said:

nice shot, John!

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Not an extremely difficult to reach or remote place, but after 8 years of no sport (bad knees...) this was my first "altitude" training hike for the (in 2016) upcoming Chile/Bolivia trip. The elevation gain was 900m (steep 700m at beginning) and though the altitude was only 2200m there was still some snow and the lake was frozen (not usual end of May). This gave however a less usual view of the lake:


Lac de la Sagne, Belledonne mountain range, Alps, France

This training (and half a dozen of other ones up to 3000m in the Alps) was welcome when we climbed the Uturuncu in the Sud Lipez region of Bolivia. Although the Uturuncu is the highest peak in the region, the Licancabur at the Chile/Bolivia border seems to have more success. Our guide was 71 years old and climbed it more than 700 times. We were nearly 20 years younger than him, but at thoses altitudes he was the faster one... ;-)
The image doesn't tell it, but we are actually at 6008m (19710 ft) above see level. Not exactly non-iconic (but less than the Licancabur), but a view you do not see much:


View north from top of Uturuncu volvano, Sud Lipez, Bolivia

Some great shots here, I love this one

O.K., there's a story here, and not an altogether happy one, either. The image below was made around early January, 1989, and the locale was so hard to get to ... you can't get to it anymore.

At that time, there was a sandy trail leading west from Lukeville, AZ, about a 1/4 mile North of the U.S.-Mexican border. If you followed that trail about 15 miles west from AZ-85 (you could see the border "wall" then, all three barbed wire strands of it), it would lead you to a sandy parking "lot." After getting out of your vehicle and taking a short hike up a slight hill you'd find yourself at a small hole in the ground where water was bubbling up out of a spring. That water then flowed downhill in narrow and very shallow slough until it emptied into this shallow pond, about as long and half again as wide as a football field, complete with some wading ducks.

To me, the truly remarkable thing was that, standing just 3 feet back from the water's edge there was nothing in your field of view to inform you that you were in the middle of a desolate desert. And yet, if you did an "about face," there would be nothing in your field of view to inform you that there was an oasis behind your back. The transition between the two was just that abrupt.

Looking on Google Earth, there's no sign of that oasis any longer. This image may be all that's left of it.


Sonoran oasis, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, c1989

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Landscaper
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"Draw me a picture of an island without any seas;
show me a map of the whole world without boundaries."

travelinbri_74 said:

Some great shots here, I love this one

Click to expand...

Thank you. Your Uzbekistan shots are wonderful. I had hoped to do the 5 'stans this spring with a friend but got waylaid by the pandemic.