Capture the Colour Contest

A competition called Capture the Colour sponsored by Travelsupermarket has been making the rounds. And although you don’t need an invite Kristin from Camels and Chocolate nominated me, thanks for your confidence. So here’s the deal. For a chance to win the grand prize (£2,000 in travel funds), you have to post one photo from your travels for each color, green, blue, yellow, red, and white which is really not a color. But you can also enter to win the category-specific prizes (an iPad 3 or prize of similar value). Find out how to enter by visiting Travelsupermarket’s Capture the Colour and nominate five other bloggers. This competition ends 8/29. I nominate…..everyone who reads this.

I Love to take photographs as I capture the now to remember the past in the future.  Having 100s of 1000s of images made these decisions all the more difficult.  Yet here I go, trying to represent what these colors mean to me.

Green

I’ve never seen so much green as the Drakensberg, or Dragon Mountains in South Africa, which offered the unique environmental diversity it was granted a Cultural and Natural UNESCO World Heritage Status for. Hiking in March with the dragons breath rolling over these towering yet soft mountains proved exciting as thunder and lightning crashed over head then slipped down the valleys. Long occupied by the Bushman people who left behind amazing rock art in sandstone shelters now watched over by baboon families frolicking on rock outcrops. My guide and I hiked 8.5 miles (14 km) from Monks Cowl Camp to Keith Bush camp below the Dragons Teeth. Every time I get the chance to place my feet upon the path of beauty into a special natural place I am both filled and emptied, humbled by the experience and seek to return.

Blue

No Photoshop needed here and it’s not in the Caribbean. Havasu Creek, a tributary to the Colorado River gets it’s name from the Havasupai, people of the blue-green water, who have called Grand Canyon home for about 800 years. My first visit hiking down to Havasu and Mooney Falls the color took my breath away. Then I saw it swirl into the muddy Colorado on a raft trip like a painter mixing wash water. The intense aqua color is caused by natural calcium carbonate and magnesium which leaves deposits of travertine on rock and wood caught in the creek forming dams and turquoise pools. The cliff walls tower above the 70 degree water making for a pleasant place to soak. Whether you journey by foot, horse, helicopter or boat into Havasu canyon you’ll enjoy more than just Arizona blue skies.

Yellow

Echo Cliffs & storm over Vermilion Cliffs in side mirror from SR89 South Arizona

Yellow lines on the road beckon to me. Many a road trip memory slips through my mind. Twenty two years old in a Vega with my dog Denver, two years later in a Chevy van, plus many more. I prefer the “blue lines” as Steinbeck called the two-lane back roads of rural America. The road constantly calls my name even after visiting all but three states, Hawaii, Maine and Alaska. While driving in South Africa I just looked at the yellow lines out the opposite window.

Red

Doesn’t the Grand Canyon just scream red rocks, well along with yellows, greens, blues, pinks, whites and blacks.  Grand Canyon National Park receives almost 5,000,000 visitors a year with 90% on the South Rim. Yet of the few that visit the main North Rim developed area even less make the 61-mile (100 km), 2-3 hour, rough gravel drive to the primitive west for the iconic Toroweap view. The towering cliffs of the canyon drop 3,000 feet (914 meters) almost straight down to the Colorado River and the notorious Lava Falls rapid. Mid-day from June to September temperatures can easily reach a red hot 100 degrees F. We only ventured out of camp to the rim during the morning and evening and hid in the shade of a boulder all day drinking copious amounts of water. Walking back to camp under brilliant moon light we kept a close eye out for rattle snakes.

White

Working at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park I enjoy the many moods displayed. White can include snow in the spring or fall on the plateau.  Yet the white fog of late monsoon season often fills the canyon surrounding the temple islands like a wind ravaged sea. Many visitors show disappointment when they arrive to this surreal view. Can’t they see King Arthur riding across the breath of the dragon?