The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

I thought that the alpine gardens of Paradise were hard to surpass in terms of beautiful vegetation in the summer, when they are covered with an incredibly thick wildflower display. After a new visit last fall, I am no longer sure which season I prefer in the park. While the flower carpets cover lot of [...]

It’s been a few months since I posted about new images in this blog. Although there are a lot of Yosemite and New York images I’d yet to comment on, in an effort to catch up, I am fast-forwarding to the most recent National Parks trip of this fall. The first objective of my visit [...]

The Great Sand Dunes protected by the National Park of the same name have the distinction of being the tallest dunes in North America, raising to heights of 750 feet. Climbing the dunes proved quite an exercise. I was making one step backwards for every two steps forward on the deep sand. It took me [...]

The Front Range of the Rocky Mountains provides one of the most abrupt changes of scenery and elevation anywhere. The western edge of the Great Plains transitions quickly to the mountains that form the Continental Divide, two miles higher. Those Colorado mountains include some of the most accessible high-altitude terrain in North America, including Mount [...]

The Appalachians, largest mountain range in the Eastern US, culminates at its southern end in North Carolina and Tennessee. Those two states split Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which preserves one of the finest virgin deciduous forest in the world. The top of Clingsman’s Dome is the highest point in the Park, at 6,643 ft [...]

Acadia National Park is my favorite landscape location on the East Coast because it packs in a small area (only 40,000 acres) such a great variety of scenery. The shoreline includes beaches, headlands, boulders, and slabs with a range of orientations. Large and small freshwater bodies are surrounded by two major forest types (eastern deciduous [...]

Despite preserving some of America’s most beautiful mountain landscapes, only three hours from Seattle, North Cascades National Park remains one of the two least visited parks in the lower 48 states. It receives less than 20,000 visitors per year, the same amount as Yosemite receives in two days. The greater unit, referred to as North [...]

Remoteness makes Big Basin National Park one of the least visited National Parks. The park lies 325 miles from El Paso, the closest major city. The three roads that lead to the park end there. They do not pass through to another location. A diverse topography, flora, and fauna surprise the visitor who takes the [...]

You can see Mount Rainier, the centerpiece of Mount Rainier National Park, more than 100 miles away. The mountain looks huge even from Seattle. While within the park, you can see Mount Rainier from almost everywhere, several lakes around the mountain offer particularly scenic compositions where you can include the reflection of the mountain. When [...]

Crater Lake is always stunning at first sight. No other lake combines such a nearly perfect large circular shape, deep blue color, and uniformly sheer surrounding cliffs almost two thousand feet high. However, past the first impression, many of the viewpoints around the lake lack either an unobstructed view, or interesting features. For this reason, [...]