This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Taken last July out on the salt flats on the border of Utah and Nevada with a good friend of mine who is an aspiring triathlete.

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Luke Spencer paddles off Outlet Falls in Washington State.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Following the guideline her life depends on, a diver threads the needle through a stalagmite forest in Dan's Cave on Abaco Island. A single, misplaced fin kick can shatter mineral formations tens of thousands of years old.

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

A cooking tent belonging to expedition scientists glows in the twilight on the rim of the Nyiragongo volcano—one of the most active in the world—in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

See pictures from the April 2011 feature story "The Volcano Next Door."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Climber John "Razor Sharp" Benson weaves through skin-ripping pinnacles. In Malagasy, the formations are called tsingy, meaning "where one cannot walk barefoot." The terrain resists intrusions from hunters, hungry cattle, and wildfires.

See more pictures from the November 2009 feature story "Living on a Razor's Edge."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

At dawn, a sliver of moon shines above the Western Cwm.

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

A skier in Whistler, Canada, jumps through a ring of fire.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Kayaking in Torssukatak fjord, near Kummiut, east Greenland

(This photo and caption were submitted to My Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Arrigetch Peaks, August 23, 2010
"These teeter-tottering granite boulders all wanted to slide," Andrew Skurka says of a talus-covered pass in the central Brooks Range, where his friend Roman Dial joined him.

See more pictures from the March 2011 feature story "Circling Alaska in 176 Days."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

The crash of rapids surrounds expedition leader David Gill, left, and Herb Laeger near the entrance of Ora Cave. Hot acidic waters welling up from deep underground, combined with drainage from heavy rains, have carved a maze of tunnels and chambers through New Britain’s young limestone.

See pictures from the September 2006 feature story "Raging Danger."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

This shot was taken in Montreal. I’m documenting the lifestyle and the passion of freerunners. Parkour is not a sport, it is a way of life, a discipline based on respect and physical and mental training. Evolving and always pushing the limits of their body and their mind, these passionate athletes stop at nothing to perfect themselves and help other freerunners to do the same. In this shot, my friend, after a lot of training, did a backflip from a four-meter-high building.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Marine life in the Yongala shipwreck, Great Barrier Reef

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

The Bodhnath Stupa is a World Heritage site in Kathmandu, Nepal. Kathmandu is for many a gateway to Mount Everest.

(This photo and caption were submitted to My Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Alex Honnold takes on the third zigzag of Half Dome without a rope. He has just one more difficult section, or pitch, in the last three before reaching the summit.

See more pictures from the May 2011 feature story "Daring. Defiant. Free."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

A picture that depicts Malibu's beauty from a different perspective. The exposure of the ocean's bottom due to the low tide, in combination with the surrounding gulls, make the surfer experience the ocean's powerful aura.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

A hiker pauses on the Neahkahnie Mountain Trail, located on the Oregon coast.

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

Dillinger River, April 17, 2010
"Despite my best efforts, my leather ski boots got soaked by the melting snow," says Andrew Skurka, who tried to leap across some creeks and rivers. "At night everything froze solid. In the morning I had to force myself to slip my feet into the icy boots."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

There is an incredible coral bloom off the village of Olowalu on Maui's south shore. I've seen the coral from a helicopter numerous times and always thought it would photograph beautifully, especially if I could arrange for some kayakers to be paddling in and around the coral to add scale to the scene.

(This photo and caption were submitted to My Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

My friend Wes Stalls gave me a call one spring morning letting me know the winds were blowing out of the east and were soarable. This picture was taken at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head, North Carolina. It is a 90-foot-tall sand dune plus smaller ones situated on a small strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Albemarle Sound. The Wright brothers took the first powered flight just five miles up the road from where this picture was taken. Wes was able to get in five or six turns before making his landing.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Adventure and Exploration Photos

The sun sets over the west shoulder of Mount Everest (right) and Mount Nuptse.

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature and Weather Photos

A glacial torrent pours over a 40-foot-high ledge at Gođafoss, "waterfall of the gods." After the Icelandic assembly adopted Christianity in 1000, its leader threw his pagan idols into the falls. The mossy island, notes geographer Guđrún Gísladóttir, "is protected from sheep."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature and Weather Photos

Prague's Charles Bridge at night as a dense fog rolls in off the river

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature and Weather Photos

Alatna River Valley, August 19, 2010
"I paddled across this deep, slow-moving river in my small pack raft," says adventurer Andrew Skurka. The Alatna meanders south from the Gates of the Arctic National Park.

See more pictures from the March 2011 feature story "Alaska Trek."

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature and Weather Photos

My wife and I paddled up the west arm of Glacier Bay and back on an eight-day kayak trip in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. We were on our own for the majority of the trip. We went days without seeing other people, but we never felt alone. This trip strengthened the already well-founded bond between us. I took this photo so that we would always have something to remind ourselves of this experience and how much closer we grew during it.

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature and Weather Photos

The life rings of a sequoia tree in Yosemite National Park

(This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot.)

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