Most of you already know, that my husband, Jimmy and I have an addiction to Death Valley.  We love the place!  And have visited it nearly a dozen times (by now).  We love bringing new people there and almost everytime - everyone falls in love with our silent, vast desert.  After living almost our entire lives in the East Coast, where you're only place for peace and vastness is hours upon hours of driving - It doesn't even come close to the enormous vastness of our favorite National Park.  When we stand there in the middle of a road where you can see a car coming from 10 miles away - I realize how small we are - It reminds me of how I feel when we think of the galaxy and space.  We are mere tiny beings moving through - just speckles of dust. 

This time, our journey consisted of exploring new territory.  Even though we've visited Death Valley so many times, we still have not discovered the entire park - even after this journey I am about to share with you all.  Telescope Peak.  It is a massive mountain especially when you stand at -282 feet below sea level (the lowest point in Death Valley).  It's over 11,000 feet- and I know it's not the biggest of all mountains but, it is the highest in this national park and has been a goal of ours for years!  Jimmy and I promised each other that we would reach the very lowest point (which we have several times) and the highest point of Death Valley. 

It was a Wednesday and we realized that we had some time to go off adventuring somewhere, anywhere- so we naturally decided to go to our most favorite place, Death Valley.  Death Valley in the heat of the summer reaches a temperature of 120 degrees!  It is HOT HOT HOT!  But in the highlands-it stays in the 80's and even chilly at night at Mahogany Flats campground. 

We set off.... reaching Death Valley in the heat.  The sun was setting so we decided to lower down our windows and feel the hot hot air as we drove through the desert.  When we finally reached our campground, we sat underneath the stars.  We decided not to drive all the way to Mahagony Flats campground and we stayed at Panamint Springs instead.  It was still HOT here, but not as hot as the valley below.  In the distance we could see a thunderstorm, but we lay down in the heat. There I am in my tent under the amazing desert stars!

We rose early to get to drive to Mahagony Flats Campground, where the trailhead started! We drove off into the desert and man was it beautiful! 

As we ascended in elevation, it got cooler! and Cooler! and Cooler!! By the time we reached Mahagony Flats (8,133 ft)- riding a dirt path with our car, I had to put on a sweater!  Not to be expected in the dead heat of the desert summer.  I was actually cold!!! and wondered if I should bring my longer pants!  I just bundled up with a sweater and off we went. That's why they close this road in the winter and this hike becomes much harder because this peak is usually covered in snow. 

We started our hike @ 8:05 AM - The day started cloudy and cool!  But it was great to hike in!  Just comfortable really!  You can't really see it in the picture below - But the sun was shining ever so slightly through the clouds.

I knew that by noon time, these clouds would definitely burn off.  The air that was crisp and cool would definitely turn into warm desert air, even high in the mountains.

 So we continued to climb.  At 8K feet, you can start to feel the elevation - your legs are definitely heavier than usual.  Key to elevation - drink lots of water.  This was advice from Chris Lynch, the hiking leader of the film we are working on right now.  Lots of water and training ,of course. 

We passed a lot of beautiful trees and flowers on the way up.  It was gorgeous.  All the different colors and the 360 degree panoramic view was nothing to shake a stick at.

See the bee in the flowers.  Jimmy and I probably sat here for minutes staring at this bee - off the side of this cliff.  It was worth it.  :)

We reached a plateau and this is what we saw.  From up there you could see the bottom of Death Valley in the distance.  The white salt flats going on for miles and miles.  You could hear nothing but the sound of the cool wind.  We also got cell phone reception (All of a SUDDEN), so we decided to call Jimmy's parents to greet them from the mountains.  Pretty cool!  I hear the top of Everest, now has cell phone reception as well.

This is about 2.5 miles into the hike.  Another 4.5 miles to go and the last part was strenuous, for sure!  This is the other side of the plateau.  The one picture above looked down to the lowest point in North America and the other side of the plateau, you could see Mt. Whitney in the far distance, the highest in the lower 48 states.  Pretty incredible, I must say!

After this we continued on and passed quite a bit of shale!  It was crazy... This part of the hike was pretty leveled.  Not many up and downs.  But soon we would reach this view, where would see our final goal.

There's Jimmy below and Telescope peak in the distance.  Gorgeous.  The plants behind us had a ton of bees!! BUZZING!  So we tried to buzz through this part as fast as we could. 

Finally we reached the bottom of the mountain, but the last mile is the strenuous climb and the elevation was starting to hit us - Excedrin was the key to the beginnings of our headaches and tons of water. 

This is one of the last pictures we took on our way up, before the crazy stretch.  This tree was amazing, so we stayed here a while taking pictures, admiring the beauty, and catching our breath!  :)

The tree was old, but the roots were very strong! And so alive.  To think, it had been here all this time staring at the beauty of the world beneath him. 

THE TOP:

Here we are at the TOP finally!  After 6. 5 hours, we finally made it.  We were so hungry and very ready for lunch, PB & J!  (What I really wanted was KFC, but alas-- they don't sell fried chicken at the top of this mountain. We did however find a small swig of Jack Daniels at the register box!!!  We signed our names away and enjoyed the world below us.  I wonder how it feels to be on top of Everest.  I would probably cry and hope that I could make it down.  I dedicated this hike to my dad, who passed away recently.  I wrote that when I signed our names at the top.  I think he would really be proud of me.

P.S. If you want to view my hike on the "MY ADVENTURE" app, we have it here on the site. I love this new app.  Although my battery did die on the way down, it got our journey to the top.  Pretty cool!! Check it out! -

Till Next time...

My husband and I were fortunate enough to go to this amazing place to shoot a wedding in Zion National Park.This was our lodge we stayed at!  Sooo beautiful!  :)

The wedding was incredibly beautiful, the couple we shot was so much like us and we managed to stay a couple more days after to explore the park. It was definitely an awesome time!! We stayed at Zion Lodge in the middle of the park. The day after the wedding, we decided to go and venture off to do Angel's Landing. This hike was awesome! It was a chilly December morning, so I had my poofy black Ski Jacket on. But as the hike and morning progressed, it got very warm! So I hid my jacket along the trail so I didn't have to pick it up later. The trail begins at THE GROTTO.

We followed the Virgin River for a while, slowly gaining elevation. There were times where it looked very much like a beautiful beach. Jimmy and I took pics of this majestic park and it's massive red cliffs surrounding us. Just beautiful!!!

As we forked away from the river, we began to take series of switchbacks between Angel's Landing and Zion Canyon. The views were spectacular! Just incredible!!! After the first set of switch backs, we enter the canyon and heard our voices echoing throughout. This area was shaded but we were still climbing.

These are the first set of switchbacks!

So we keep going! Some fellow hikers reached this area and turned around. We passed some interesting signs along the way that warned us of how incredibly scary this hike really was. So we climb and climb clinging for dear life on these chains with sharp sharp sharp! Drop offs and narrow trails around us. We get through the first part of the "hump" and again think.. ohhh we made it! We were again, WRONG. WE looked up and saw there was more to climb past this one little hill, so we continued.

The next part was the infamous "Leap of Faith" which looks like you're about to fall off or jump to the other side of this rock. On either side of this very narrow path were thousands of feet to your death. It was pretty scary.

Spoiler alert.. we made it! We kept going, climbing higher and higher. We passed another couple that did us the huge favor of taking a death defying picture on the side of a cliff for us. :) Pretty awesome! We continued… After some time, we made it to the top. The view was SPECTACULAR. We could see the Lodge from where we were.. We could see everything, the start of the trail, the river, the lodge, the ant-like hikers below! It was amazing! And the sun was creating such beautiful colors and shadows on the red towering rocks.

We ate some lunch and was approached by a furry visitor. He wanted our delicious crumbs. Then even met an older fella up there, and we told him about our Peruvian adventure. I believe he might go because of us. Pretty cool! A bunch of hikers, eating lunch and sharing our adventures! After we enjoyed our summit, snapped a couple pics, we started heading down.

The sun was descending pretty fast since it was dead smack in the middle of winter. Going down is so much harder now that Jimmy and I have knee pain from our hike on Telescope last year. Although knee braces really help us a lot. On our way down, I picked up my hidden jacket. Someone else also had the same idea and saw their being hidden away, too. It was getting chilly now coz the sun was going down so fast. All in All! What an amazing hike!! Highly recommend it. Definitely one of the prettiest day hikes we've ever been on. Piece of advice though, Don't do this hike if you are afraid of heights. Or do it anyway… if you want to face your fear! :)  Till Next time!!!! :)

Pisac - I heard about Pisac Market searching for places to see while in Cusco. So there we were riding to through the mountains overlooking the Andes. We stopped to take plenty of pictures of the mountainside, peruvian people who were so incredibly interesting to study (their beautiful bright colored clothes alone made my eyes feast on their beauty), and the town/villages from above.

Soon, we were descending into the Pisac Market to stop at an ATM. After shopping around in Cusco, we were eager to the see the archaeological sites as opposed to walking around the market. Although, I would of loved to have just an afternoon there. After getting some cash, Jaiyme took us away up into the beautiful mountainsides overlooking Pisac again, only now from the other side of the mountain range. We were headed to the amazing Pisac ruins, and oh, how truly amazing it was. It began to drizzle a bit, but that certainly did not stop us from taking pictures of this place. An old man tried to sell us a poncho for 40 Soles (around USD $15) - after buying ours in the US for $2. He began to bargain his price down as we refused to take his ridiculous offers. We sneered at his selfish efforts in trying to take advantage of us "the Tourists." Here's our poncho we brought!

Jimmy and I enjoyed looking at the ruins, the Incan steps,

and the small holes in the mountains that were Incan tombs. It was pretty amazing. The place was huge. It took us a whole hour and a half to somewhat "look around." We did find a nice house for us to live in on the top:

We finally made our way out. We walked through the walkway above the vendors selling us all kinds of trinkets, snacks, and drinks. We stopped about Peruvian corn with cheese and water. Peruvian corn were MASSIVE kernels of corn with some kind of crumbled cheese (sort of like FETA). It was delightful! Afterwards, we descended back into the valley to Pisac Market again. Only this time, we did take 45 minutes to bargain and shop for souvenirs. We bought 2 incan rattles, alpaca scarves, an awesome knife, and a pipe for a friend. We also met this mom and daughter - both dressed in the colorful traditional peruvian clothing. They were so gorgeous and I had such a nice exchange with them.

Then we met Jaiyme again (searching for the main square was fun- the market is quite a maze). Then we went on our journey to our next destination --- FOOD!!!! Jaiyme suggested this awesome buffet off the side of the road we were traveling. It was awesome!!! AND SOOO GOOD! It was a great buffet with views all around the valley. We were surrounded by majestic mountains. There were houses high up on the mountains and they looked so beautiful from below. Jaiyme told us that the people on the mountains have no water or power. They are very poor. He told us that 1/3 of Peruvians live like that. Reminded me of home, the Philippines.

The food was great as usual. But our favorite was the flan. We had 3 pieces. It was soo good!!! Afterwards, we went to the bathroom. We couldn't figure out the male/female bathrooms because we didn't understand the signs. Soon we both emerged feeling silly and went to the correct bathrooms. Amusing for the locals, I'm sure. After we paid, we went to the car and we were full and rested. Next stop was Ollantaytambo. (hard to say! But still an awesome place).

These ruins were pretty cool! Jimmy's favorite outside of Machu Picchu. We parked near a neat village next to this man made stream. Jaiyme took us to the entrance. The only problem with this place was the crowd. It was pretty busy so timing was key to not get swallowed by bus tours. Jimmy yawned and I caught it in a picture. He was very excited despite his yawning, I assure you. This was probably the best training right before our big Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu. As we went up, we saw the whole little village. We saw the car with Jaiyme cleaning it with the water from the stream. We kept going up and the view was amazing.

We had a "holy sh*t" moment at the top among the ruins looking out at the Peruvian mountains. It was like "where the heck are we!!!?!" It was an incredible moment indeed. This is Jimmy yawing at the majestic site. But seriously.. we both loved it, but getting up earlier in the AM at the crack of dawn to go on this trip really beat it out of us. GORGEOUS!

Till next time, folks!! :)

I took an hour walk at Old town Pasadena. My adventure has started the intersection of Fair Oaks an Colorado and I took my way to the South to the Central Park.

My adventure has continued to Castle Greene, Paseo Colorado, Pasadena Convention center. Then I have turned to the north to go City Hall, then headed to the West to

the heart of old town.

http://www.oldpasadena.org/

This hiking loop is the closest nature area from the business district. Only 7 minutes drive from the Lake Ave business district.