Favorite Outdoor Places - OBN photo prompt

Yesterday, the OBN posted a new photo prompt - post a photo of your favorite outdoor place. I love photography & have zillions of pictures from all my trips, and it was hard to pick just one, so I decided to do a first/second/third place.

Third place: Arizona/Tucson area

My aunt lives in Tucson and I've been out to see her a few times. We went out this past April & spent 5 days there, and it was the perfect trip to play with my new camera on! The landscape out there is just gorgeous - the desert, mountains, saguaros, everything. We did a short hike about half an hour outside the city, and I took this photo on the hike. The "cactus" looking cacti are saguaros, which are unique to a very small area of southern Arizona, and the fuzzy one at the bottom is a teddy bear cholla.

Second place: Green Mountains, Vermont

I have done two amazing overnight trips in the Green Mountains of Vermont - this particular photo is from our 2008 trip to Camel's Hump. We hiked up in drizzle, fog and even hail (it was crazy!), and got to the summit to find it totally boxed in. We were a little disappointed, but the clouds started to clear after a little while and gave us absolutely amazing views of the mountains through the clouds. It was really surreal! I haven't hiked in the Green Mountains with the rest of my group, just my best hiking buddy Meg, but I'd like to do more trips in Vermont this year. Vermont is a really special place!

First place: Franconia Ridge, NH

I have done the majority of my hiking in New Hampshire, and one place I will go again & again is Franconia Ridge. I've done two big loop hikes on the ridge, both with my friend Meg, and I am planning to bring the rest of my group up there this year since they've never been. I should say that the White Mountains in general are my number one favorite outdoor place, but Franconia Ridge is beautiful. The views down into the notch and across at the cliffs of Cannon, north to the Presidentials, and east into the Pemigewasset wilderness are just amazing - it's a very spiritual thing for me being up there. There are usually crowds on the ridge so it isn't very solitary, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for me.

I do have a few runners-up for favorite outdoor places photos that had to be included:

Ferry Beach, Saco, Maine

Ferry Beach is my favorite place in the world. It's a Unitarian Universalist camp on the coast of Maine that I grew up camping at every summer, and it's very special to me. My church does a retreat for a weekend up there every fall, and my family still goes. Ferry Beach refreshes me mentally, spiritually, and in every other sense of the word, and this past fall when we were there, I woke up to be on the beach for sunrise every morning. It was magical, and I got some great pictures.

Arizona

This is one of my favorite photos from our Arizona trip this past spring. We did a sunset horseback ride in the desert - my fiance really wanted to ride a horse in the desert (he's really into the wild west thing... lol), so we found a ranch & did it! It was a wonderful experience, and I got this awesome shot on the ride.

Imperial Sand Dunes, California

This has to be one of the coolest places we've ever been. On our trip out west this past spring, we drove to Tucson to visit my aunt from San Diego, which was an awesome 2-day road trip. One area we went through was the Imperial Sand Dunes, a huge dune sea in the far southern part of California near the border of Mexico and Arizona. We were super excited, pulled off into the recreation area & ran up the dunes to get a view. The dunes extended out from either side of the highway as far as the eye could see. Definitely one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, right up there with the redwoods. I wish the power lines & ATV tracks weren't in the picture, but we took some fantastic shots of the dunes.

These are my favorite outdoor places/photos of said places! I hope to be acquiring more 'favorite outdoor places' as I continue to hike and travel but I hope the photos are enjoyable :)