Have you visited any locations that took your breath away?

14 responses total.

I've been to several.

The most recent was our trip to Yellowstone.  The largest geo-thermal
display in the world.  Hot springs, geysers, and steam.  Quite a
fascinating study in geology and water.  Also, our experience with
very close hand observations of both wild bison and wild bull elk in
this very same park.  No bear observed (much to Barbara's disappointment).

   Denali National Park, in Alaska.  I actually got to see the
mountain!  It was impressively huge, especially after hiding in
clouds most of the time. (It's about twice as high as many of
the peaks in the Cascades.)

   Crater Lake, Oregon.  It's one of the most beautiful
spots in the world, with crystal-clear water.  You can
see more than a hundred feet down (or at least you could
several years ago, last time I was there.)

   The rural mountains in Guatemala, up where the Indigenas
still practice their traditional customs.  Not exactly breathtaking,
but beautiful, and much how I thought Shangri-La would look.

   Palenque, Mexico.  IMHO, it's the most beautiful of the
abandoned Maya cities.  It's a Classic period site (which
has the most life-like artistic style), and has been
given a lot of reconstruction.  It's surrounded by jungle,
you can hear the monkeys screeching.

   By the way, one of the better times to visit Yellowstone is in
late September.  Most of the tourists have gone, and the animals
move down from the peaks before winter arrives.  You risk getting
snowed in, though.  I passed through at that time, about five
years ago.  We shared the campground with a herd of elk, saw a
couple of bison by Old Faithful, and got to watch a bear eat a
dead deer, from a distance of about 6 yards.  There was a
stream between the bear and us (I'm not crazy!).

   Most of the other people in the park seem to be wildlife
photographers (surprize!).  There must have been almost a
dozen people with fancy cameras on tripods taking pictures
of that bear, who just glanced up at them (us) once in a
while.

  The scenic high point of the summer for me was driving up California
highway 1 with my parents (from Los Angeles, after my brother got married,
to San Francisco, where we were going to stay with my sister and her 
husband.)  The most impressive part was the stretch of coastline between 
Cambria and Big Sur, through the Los Padres National Forest and the Ventana
National Wilderness.  Miles of simply unbelievable coastline.  Unfortunately
the most exciting part of the drive through that particular stretch was 
guessing whether or not you'd be flattened by a head on collision with a
Greyhound bus speeding around a blind corner and slipping over into your
lane.  The scenery was amazing, though.  We got out at one point and hiked
back into one of the canyons where a stream trickled down through the 
redwoods until it came to a hole in the cliff wall and emptied out a 
waterfall directly into the ocean.  Neat, and apparently unique.  To top
off the drive, you come to Point Lobo, which looks out across Carmel Bay
at the Monterey Peninsula.  After that you come to Monterey and Monterey
Bay which may very well be the neatest bay in the world.

  On the same trip, I split up from my parents for a couple of days and
went to visit a friend who had gone to Stanford and was still living in
the area and working at a recycling center in Palo Alto (though he has since
moved back to Michigan.)  He and his housemates lived in this amazing house
back in the foothills in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County.  They
were far enough back that they were off the power grid and got all their
power from solar cells and a battery and a gasoline powered generator. 
There they were, in this really rustic house without even electric power,
perched on the edge of this small canyon (Diablo Canyon.)  We hiked down an
old logging road to the bottom of the canyon and went skinny dipping and
rafting in a small pond that was filled with newts and seemingly surrounded
by banana slugs.  The pond was complete with a rope swing.  I felt like I 
was in a Mountain Dew commercial.  It was really bizarre knowing that they
were in the same county with most of Silicon Valley and that if you were to
go 25 miles north, south, or east you'd hit at least a half a million people,
probably more.  Someday the crowding in the Bay Area will start forcing 
people back towards the ocean side of the peninsula, a lot of which is 
protected by various state, federal, local, and private conservation areas.
When it does, it will be a real shame.

  The trip was a lot of fun, even if I did have to pass on the road trip
back to Michigan with my friend (planned route included Seattle, Banff,
Lake Louise, Lake Winnipeg, the Boundary Waters, and Isle Royale, over the
course of two weeks.)  Still, I think the scenery which I'm most fond of is
the Lake Michigan shoreline near home.  There's nothing quite like the Lake
Michigan dunes, and I'll probably always love them best.

   Near Muinsing MI (Upper central UP), there are several falls.  The one
closest to Muinising, called Muinising Falls, was my favorite.  The water
comes about 65 feet down in a little trickle and lands on a flatish area
of rock, such that on really hot days you have a natural, if cold and
somewhat brutal cold shower.  The way the walks are setup, you can walk
around it and step right up to it if you want.  Of course the water is
hitting rather hard, but it is fun to stand near it and feel the spray.

If you're ever around Portland, OR, and can't find enough great stuff on 
your own, try the Multnomah Falls, and some other falls, in the basin
east of the city.

STeve, you reminded me of the trip Luann and I took to Kauai.  The most
bestest wonderfullest neato cool area is the Na Pali coast.  We bought
books on hiking that coastline before we left -- which were helpful.
Your comment about the falls is what did it.  We hiked along the Kalaulau
Trail and then went up into a hanging valley to the most incredible falls.
The falls started about 1500 feet overhead, and came crashing down.  The
hike was arduous, and worth all 8 hours for the falls.

   Eight hours to see the falls?  Thats nice.  Makes for a form of
natural selection; the #*&%#! who spray-paint areas like that probably
wouldn't invest the effort to get there.
   Now that you've described them, I want to see 'em.  I thought that
the <100 ft falls in Muinising was something; now I want to see one
thats .25 miles...

rainbow falls in the devils postpile in fact the devils postpile is awsome     
and also most favorite in this world for me is a 4 hour hike to a place called 
paradise valley in the sequoias in calif. i really love anyplace i don't see   
 atleast 3-4 days 1 wk prefered. love life, love nature, gotta love it all!!!

I was hiking in the Grand Canyon last week, around Lake Havasupai, in the
campground and all over some falls. Great scenery, if you like that 
sort of thing. a nice 7 mile, 2000' hike down (and then back up - argh)

(Sounds like it beats the Arb for quality & quantity of exercise.)

Heck, most of the bike rides I go on have 1100 feet of climb, these days.

Don't come back down all at once bad!  (How high are you now, by the way? ;)

2300' or so. And finally getting used to the 2000 feet difference. It was 
really getting to me early on - that and the temperature.
(ann arbor is 850' or so, and the midpoint of my rides is 2900' or so)

As to natural wonders, on the return trip from the G. Canyon a few
weeks ago, on a clear *clear* night with a full moon and some
rain in the distance, we saw a moon rainbow.
It had all of the colors, and was quite pronounced. Very beautiful and 
as far as I know, very rare. I'd never seen one, anyway.

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