It’s hard to believe that we’re about to say goodbye to 2019 and start a new decade! At the end of every year, Owen and I like to take some time and each pull our five favorite photos from the year. Without further ado, here they are!

Owen

April: Point Reyes, California

While at a friend’s wedding someone recommended a hike in Point Reyes and since we were nearby we made a point to check it out. We’re glad we did. It was a beautiful hike filled with ocean views and elk! We also fell in love with the town of Point Reyes Station where we got an amazing grilled cheese and chatted with locals for hours. Last year we picked up an old manual Nikon lens and put an adapter on it, and this was taken with that lens. It’s a portrait lens but I love the way it renders landscapes too.

June: Escalante, Utah

It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong, right? Well on this hike we made sure it was an adventure. We also had our friends Peter and Shruthi along for this adventure. Almost immediately we went off trail thinking we could find a more direct route. We were wrong. Eventually we made it back to the trail and continued on making it to camp well after sunset (we were trying to make it to our endpoint in time to take pictures at sunset). Since there was a clear forecast we opted to cowboy camp and watch the stars that night. One by one we fell asleep until we were woken by the sound of thunder at 1AM. After watching the storm for a few minutes we determined that it was heading right for us. We scrambled to get everything packed up and searched for shelter with no success. After about an hour of sitting in the sprinkling rain we gave up and just slept right through it. On the bright side the morning was clear and beautiful and we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery that we missed the evening before. This picture of Shruthi was taken as the sun was setting on our way out to camp. 

July: Red’s Meadow, John Muir Trail, California

Growing up, my mother liked to hike and we’d often go out for day trips all around Georgia. Since then, MAK and I have hiked all over the US and Canada. I even proposed to MAK at the top of hike in Cumberland Gap National Park. It’s no exaggeration to say that hiking has played a major role in my life. Getting to share a hike with my mom now felt like the perfect way to thank her for all the adventures she took me on as a kid. The John Muir Trail is an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. To have my Mom do it with us for the first 5 days made it that much better. I couldn’t be more proud of her and what she accomplished in our time together. This picture was taken right before we said goodbye to her and continued on the trail.

July: Mt. Whitney, John Muir Trail, California

A single day on the JMT was filled with so much emotion and adventure that it felt like weeks. Extrapolating that over 15 days turns two weeks into an incredible endeavor. The terminus of that endeavor is the summit of Mt Whitney. We summited an hour before sunrise and proceeded to freeze our asses off, but as the sun rose we warmed up and the darkness lifted to reveal the scene around us. I was overcome with the sum of all the emotions of our two weeks on the trail. It was the highest of highs in my life, both literally and figuratively. A truly fitting end to an epic hike. On the way down from the summit MAK snapped this panorama on her 35mm.

August: Bend, Oregon

We see a lot of great sunsets out on the road, but every year one or two really stand out. This was one from this year. We were on an overnight backpack with our friend Oliver and opted to cook dinner up on a cliff above a lake. Looking in one direction was the beautiful lake below us and looking the other way was this view of the mountains. We all sat in awe as we watched the show that mother nature put on for us. We had a short walk after the sun set and by the time we made it to camp the stars were out and we were treated to another amazing display of mother nature. It was a good hike.

MAK

March: White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Before I dive into the obvious reasons why this is one of my favorite pictures from this year, I wanted to pass along the good news! White Sands National Monument has been redesignated as a National Park! Roughly a week ago it got passed as a piggyback law National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. Pretty cool right? This photo was taken the night we scored permits to stay in the backcountry of White Sands. They only have 10 permits a day and we blindly stumbled into getting them of the day of a super moon! A man who was in line before us had driven over 1000 miles to be there for that night. As soon as we got our camp set up we proceeded to spend our evening running and jumping off the dunes. Owen got the idea that this would be a great opportunity to work on his backflips with varying levels of success. We laughed so hard for such a long time after this attempt. I like this photo so much it’s been the background on my phone ever since it was taken!

April: Baja, Mexico

We love to go down to Mexico to surf. This time we took our dear friend Tierney with us, making her our first official guest in our new rig! Sadly, the surf wasn’t the best on our trip, but we made the best of it by paddling out regardless of the conditions. On this particular day, we were out in the water for a few hours when a nasty storm rolled in. We watched it approach from the water and decided it was best to get out before the lightning came our way. Turns out the storm, as violent as it was, only lasted a few minutes and caught us on our walk back to the truck. As suddenly as the rain started, it broke revealing a perfect, vibrant, triple rainbow right where we had been surfing. At an all-out sprint, we made it back to the truck just in time to snap this picture of the double rainbow. The three rainbows were so perfect and vivid that even the local fisherman came out of their shacks and started cheering! I will remember that moment for the rest of my life!

May: Muley Point, Utah

This photo really embodies one of my favorite months from this entire year. Meet Peter and Shruthi. We’ve been “internet friends” with them for years but never got a chance to meet them because they’ve spent the last two years traveling the PanAmerican Highway. Earlier this year we were finally able to meet in Sedona, Arizona for the first time and planned to spend the weekend with them. That weekend turned into over a month of traveling together. When we met we felt like we’d always know each other, but also frustrated that it took so long for them to come into our lives! The reason I love this picture so much is because it perfectly sums up our time together: the most wonderful friends, beautiful views, beers in hand, and a whole lot of desert. This photo was taken with our Nikon FE 35mm film camera. It was balanced on a rock and shot via a timer so we could all be in the photo together.

July: Thousand Island Lake, John Muir Trail, Ca

Our time on the John Muir Trail was a life-changing experience. This particular morning was insanely beautiful but was the beginning of a particularly trying day. We woke up on the banks of Thousand Island Lake. It had been so cold overnight that the lake completely froze over and made for a chilly morning. To get back to the JMT we had to walk nearly a mile through shin-deep water that had a layer of ice over it. In one section there were even trout swimming up the trail! As we rounded to corner to the JMT the sun finally came up to light up the mountainside and it caused this beautiful reflection! It stopped us dead in our tracks. Shortly after this, we went a mile down the wrong trail, and Sissy (Owen’s Mom), lost her shoes which were tied to the outside of her pack. Owen and I had to backtrack to find them. The two mistakes added four miles to our already long day, of over 15 miles!

October: Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

This year we spent a lot of time in Utah. Every time we head back into the desert we fall deeper in love with it. While traversing Utah with Peter and Shruthi this spring we had so much rain that we weren’t able to do a lot of what we’d come to do. This fall we made a point to head back to Capitol Reef so we could do the Cathedral Loop road. This formation is called Temple of the Sun and Moon and is on the final stretch of the 60 mile road. We made sure that we were there for sunrise so we could shoot it at first light. These formations are breathtaking, and it was really moving to see them great the sun of a new day!

Thank you all so much for following along with our journey this year. It’s an honor that you all choose to spend time on our blog. We wish you nothing put happiness in the new year and new decade. With that, I’m off to have an existential crisis! ;) Just kidding, we’re actually really excited for everything on the horizon!

Love, MAK & Owen