Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #222: Mountains are Calling

Published on by Yinglan

Amy from the blog – The World is a Book… – is hosting this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #222 and she has chosen a topic I am all too familiar with – Mountains are calling and boy, are they calling!

Living in the intermountain west region of the U.S, I am not only landlocked but I am also surrounded by mountains. This is what I see each time I step out my front door, well on a winter day anyway.

Then it’s just a matter of bypassing a few neighborhoods and crossing a highway before reaching the base of this mountain. From there, I can just park the car and get a glimpse of the city.

On a clear winter day in early February, you can see all the way to the mountains to the west as well as the Great Salt Lake as well as the Bonneville Salt Flat. The white stuff is salt, not snow. 😄Then on one of those long summer days that feels like the sun will never set, drive about 5 minutes northward from this spot to catch the sun setting to the west.

Honestly, I don’t remember how I became attracted to nature. As a child, I hated doing exercise. You couldn’t get me to walk 100 steps to take out the trash let alone go walk a few laps around the track in the gym. I hated feeling out of breath, hated that it took me a long time to recover, hated the muscle aches, and hated being sweaty and stinky. For some strange reason though, I decided to go for a hike 6 years ago and got addicted to nature ever since.

This is Snowbasin, about a 30 minutes drive for me. I’ve hiked this 3-mile trail at least once a year since probably 2017 with the exception of this year as I couldn’t get anyone to hike with me and wasn’t allowed to hike alone. I love the view during spring and fall, which are two times I’d go hiking ever since I learned my skin burn easily during summer even with SPF 100. So you won’t find me on the trail in June, July, and possibly August.

After exploring the mountains up north for the last few years, I decided to change direction and head southeastward in 2022 where the scenery seems different and somehow, more beautiful than the mountains up north. Perhaps the mountains up north are growing on me, getting boring?

It was in this region of the state I found my all-time favorite spot.

I feel there are still plenty of nooks and crannies to explore in this region and I hope I will get to do more exploration in this region in 2023.

21 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #222: Mountains are Calling”

  1. Absolutely gorgeous! I grew up in CT so even the mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire that I think are big cannot compare! I can’t imagine walking out every day to this magnificent scenery, but I don’t want to live where there is snow! Now in FL everything is flat. I can look out over the water and see a different kind of beauty but someday I want to see all of the US and what is out there!

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    1. I just came back from a trip to the east coast, which has very different landscape. Traveling through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, it was mostly hills and the terrain felt mostly flat. So, no, nothing can compare these large mountains.

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  2. Taking my breath away, Yinglan… How lucky to be surrounded by mountains, I envy you!
    Love your mountain gallery that enable us to enjoy the morning, sunset, different seasons scenes of these majestic mountains. Remarkable photos! And, thank you for sharing.

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  5. You really do live in a stunning part of the country. The snow covered hills from your neighborhood would be a motivation to walk every day. I am sure it never looks the same. My favorite was the brilliant colors of the last photo.

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    1. No, it never really looks the same. 😀 I went to the park for a walk today and found half of the mountains have a light dusting of snow overnight while the other half was still red, yellow, orange. I think the mountains are the prettiest during transitional periods between seasons. 🙂

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    1. I think it’s a blessing in its own ways though I do sometimes miss seeing the sun rising above the horizon instead of waiting an hour or so for it to overcome the mountains. 😀 I agree, the view is majestic.

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