I Traveled 3 Months through North America and It Blew My Mind

My name is Guido Diana and I am a Dutch photographer and adventurer. After backpacking in Australia for 2 years, I decided to do one more massive adventure to explore and photograph North America for 3 months. 

Starting last September, I traveled over 24,000 km (14,000 miles) and I witnessed the most stunning scenery and adventures. I have seen the yellow aspen trees during fall in Colorado, the incredible lakes of the Canadian rockies, hiked the most epic canyons of Utah, had an encounter with a wild grizzly bear and saw many more breathtaking views!

The scenery I witnessed in North America amazed me, and in my opinion this continent has some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. I want to share with you my 15 best pictures that I took during this trip.

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For me, Courthouse Mountain in Colorado is one of the most unique landscapes I've ever photographed. It is extremely hard to get to this spot and the climb is certainly not for the faint-hearted, but the view was totally worth it! I was lucky enough to be there when the aspen trees were peaking yellow!

During my visit to Athabasca Glacier I found an ice cave! Just the feeling and the epic blue hue when walking inside is just beyond words. However, this visit also made me more aware of the accelerating climate change the planet is in! The fast melting of the glacier is easily visible.

I had to wait for four sunrises to finally see the back end of Lake Louise in Canada. It felt like there was a curse on me when I visited this spot, every day was mist or super cloudy weather, preventing me getting the shot I had in mind. I kept persisting and after 4 days my patience payed of with a stunning sunrise!

During my waiting game for good weather at Lake Louise, one of the locals told me of a rumor of a grizzly bear feeding on the train track near the Bow River. I hopped in the car and it wasn't long before I found the grizzly. After showing this image to some locals, I learned that I captured the infamous grizzly bear called The Boss, who fathers around 80% of the cubs in that area.

It was an exhausting hike to get to The Subway in Utah, but so well worth it! I started hiking at first light and spent nearly 3 hours photographing and enjoying this spectacular canyon.

The super popular Mesa Arch in Utah. I had to get up for sunrise twice to get the shot I had in mind, since the first time I went there were already 5 photographers one hour prior to sunrise. Regardless of it being busy, I wouldn't have wanted to miss out witnessing the orange glow of the arch!

The night before I scouted this lookout at Peyto Lake, it was still a snowless landscape. I was hoping for a clear day sunrise so I would have the first light on the mountains. However overnight it snowed like crazy leaving this white landscape with the super blue glacier lake.

The Cypress Tree Tunnel is a famous spot just an hour outside of San Fransisco. It's just magical during sunrise on a clear day.

The wind was absolutely killing me that morning at Bryce Canyon in Utah. The night before, a snow storm passed the canyon, leaving massive damage to the national park roads. When I first got to the lookout at sunrise, it was packed with mist so I was about to abandon this location and not shoot it, when all of a sudden the clouds started to open, casting this beautiful light. 

Mount Sneffels in Colorado is more to me than just a mountain I took pictures of, it was a second home. Since the idea was to capture an epic sunrise with a lot of clouds, a few friends and I had to wait out the forecasted clear days, so we decided to camp at the foot of the mountain. There were a few mountain outfitters here as well who we befriended. As I left the camera running for this star trail shot (which is a stack of 100 photos), we exchanged our stories at the campfire under this epic sky full of stars.

As many of my shots were planned, I stumbled upon this train track next to the Canadian Bow River by chance. I had to wait in the cold with my camera for 45 minutes for the train, which was well worth the wait in the end.

It has been on my bucket list for years to visit The Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was just an incredible feeling standing above this enormous canyon and shout as loud as you can to hear your echo bounce back seconds away!

At first, I was planning to take a few shots of Pyramid Mountain, which gives a beautiful reflection in Patricia Lake. However, I noticed the mountain range towards the other end of the lake proved to be spectacular as well!

The planning was to just take a few photos of Mobius Arch near Alabama Hills in California, but quickly the idea arose to capture it with the Milky Way in the background. I had to wait for 3 hours in the cold wind for the milky way to align perfectly with the arch. You won't believe how relieved I was to get into my warm sleeping bag.

I stumbled upon the Bixby Creek Bridge in California by chance when I was on my way scouting for seascape images to shoot in the area. I noticed a little hill over the bridge off the tourist trail that proved perfect for capturing car trails.