California Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 12' 42.94" N, Longitude: 118° 36' 40.39" W, Coord: 37.21193°, -118.61122°
Filed under: Sierra Nevada on 9/18/2011
In the next month I hope to once again make a brief trip to Bishop, California to enjoy the changing colors of the quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides). Below are the websites and photographers I follow to stay abreast of how conditions are changing as the autumn season progresses. I will be carrying several cameras with me this year so I don’t have to change lenses in the field. The lenses I find most useful are 16-35 or 15mm fisheye, 24-105, 70-200. I will also carry a small Lumix LX3 infrared-converted camera with which the below image was shot:
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| Aspen trees in fall, eastern Sierra fall colors, autumn. Image ID: 23320 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains |
- G. Dan Mitchell’s Sierra Nevada photography is superb (especially his Yosemite images), and his blog is informative and well-written. Dan has written a super primer about fall color in the Eastern Sierra “Sierra Nevada fall color season – coming sooner than you think!” loaded with good information about what to expect and how to plan for autumn in the Sierra Nevada.
- Carol Leigh’s Calphoto.com. This is where many California photographers exchange detailed reports autumn foliage.
- Inge Fernau / MagicalGlow.com. I first noticed Inge Fernau’s photography as a result of her incredibly rich fall color reports on Calphoto. She gets out there to so many places, then fills us all in with exactly what the conditions are. Her blog is loaded with huge, beautiful images of the Eastern Sierra, and I’m hoping she publishes more of her fall color reports this year. Here is a two-part summary of her 2008 efforts, some spectacular images shown: 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 1 and 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 2.
- Greg Boyer and Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions are two very talented photographers in Bishop, California who post timely info about conditions and their recent photographic works.
- Steven Bourelle / SierraVisionsStock.com. Steven Bourelle gave me advice prior to my first visit to Bishop for fall colors, and he was spot on with his recommendations. He has written an e-book guide about photography in the Eastern Sierra and Bishop Creek Canyon packed with good information along with a 2009 post “Eastern Sierra Nevada Fall Colors” about planning for a fall foliage shoot in the Eastern Sierra.
- Dave Henry’s reports and tips at the Sacramento Bee are really good.
- Michael Frye, one of the best photographers around who focuses on Yosemite and surrounding areas, has a blog post about Autumn in Yosemite. (Michael Frye has THE BOOK on photographing in Yosemite, I own a copy and have referred to it often.)
- Parcher’s Resort, near South Lake in Bishop Creek Canyon, maintains a fall color report in season.
- Eastern Sierra Fall Color Reports, a thread at NaturePhotographers.net started by Bishop photographer Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions.
- Bishop weather forecast. (NWS)
- Pictures of Fall Color in Bishop Creek Canyon on Google Earth. If you have Google Earth installed, this provides a map with 18 of my favorite aspen images appearing superimposed where they were taken in Bishop Creek Canyon. You can zoom around and click any of the tiny thumbnails in Google Earth to see the image large along with captions. In a perfect world I would offer to actually walk around with your camera and shoot the photos for you, but in lieu of that this is the best I can do.
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| Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17547 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17497 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Aspen trees turn yellow and orange in early October, South Fork of Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17532 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| An explosion of yellow and orange color, aspen trees changing color in fall, autumn approaches. Image ID: 23325 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| White trunks of aspen trees, viewed upward toward the yellow and orange leaves of autumn and the blue sky beyond. Image ID: 23337 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
Shameless plug: I’ve got a nice collection of fall color photos. Check them out, they really are pretty good if I do say so myself. (Heck, when the colors are peaking its hard to take a bad photo of turning aspens.)
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Aspens in Autumn, Populus tremuloides - Images by Phillip Colla |
Keywords: eastern sierra fall color, aspen, report, foliage, photography, picture, bishop, photo, autumn, image, information, description.
Convict Lake Sunrise, Eastern Sierra Nevada, California
Convict Lake is a small lake at the foot of Laurel Mountain and Mount Morrison, in the Sherwin Range of the Sierra Nevada, California. Convict Lake is named for a group of convicts that escaped from Carson City, fled to and were apprehended after a shootout. Convict Lake is a popular fishing lake in the summer and is frequently stocked with trout. I happened to make two early morning stops at Convict Lake this summer, and these are the sunrises that I saw there:
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| Convict Lake sunrise reflection, Sierra Nevada mountains. Image ID: 26974 |
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| Sunrise and storm clouds over Convict Lake and Laurel Mountain, Eastern Sierra Nevada. Image ID: 26858 Location: California, USA |
Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park
Photos of Vernal Falls and the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park
Sarah and I recently made our somewhat-annual hike up the Mist Trail in Yosemite, enjoying the heights and sounds of Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls, as well as the Panorama Trail. It was not a serious photography outing since I was huffin’ and puffin’ just keeping up with Sarah who is a serious hiker and in better condition than I. We did make a stop just below Vernal Falls where we made the photo below. This is a place at which I always stop for a photo, and often there is a rainbow in the composition (see bottom of this post). On this day, however, breaking out the camera was especially difficult because of the enormous amounts of spray produced by near-record flow in the Merced River. I had about a second to get the shot before the lens would fog over with spray. I tried a dozen times and then gave up not wanting to damage the camera. I got this one keeper frame out of the attempts.
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| Vernal Falls and Merced River in spring, heavy flow due to snow melt in the high country above Yosemite Valley. Image ID: 26878 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
While we were hiking, we discussed the potential pitfalls of the hike, the short sections of the steps leading up to Vernal Fall which are most dangerous, where a simple slip can lead to a deadly fall down the steep and slippery rock apron and into the raging Merced. We also discussed the danger around the top of Vernal and Nevada falls, each of which has seductive and exceeding risky brinks. She got the message and I didn’t browbeat her too much, but quietly kept her within arms reach during some of those more nervous sections of the hike.
A few weeks later I had a somewhat unsettling experience. After enjoying a family reunion in Yellowstone during which I had the phone and email turned off for a week, I returned to my office to find that the most popular images on my website for the previous week were all images of Vernal Falls. Then, catching up on messages, I found two urgent calls from news organizations asking for images of the falls to run in breaking news stories. “Uh oh.” Indeed, with a quick search of recent headlines I learned that three young people had tragically died after slipping into the Merced above Vernal Falls and going over the edge. What a terrible event, for the three young hikers but also for all the others present on the brink of Vernal Falls at the time it happened. I felt sick in the gut, knowing Sarah and I had been there just a few days prior, walking those same steps and having one of the most enjoyable days together we have ever shared. With just a small misstep, the Mist Trail can turn deadly, and indeed it does almost every year. This year the Mist Trail has claimed at least four lives. Yet, it remains one of my favorite trails and I will continue to hike it with Tracy and the girls as long as they can tolerate my slowing pace and lame jokes.
About the Hike: Spring is the time to visit Vernal Falls and the famous Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park. Vernal Falls is at peak flow in late May and June, the weather is usually pleasant and the dogwoods are in bloom on the valley floor. We try to make a springtime visit to Yosemite each year to hike the Mist Trail with our daughters. We get soaked by the falls on the way up, soak in the sun and dry off at the top, enjoy a lunch of trail mix and Clif bars alongside other hikers, and leisurely make our way back down the trail later in the afternoon. If one times his visit to Vernal Falls at midday, a rainbow is often visible in front of the falls when viewed from the trail just 100 yards away.
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| Vernal Falls at peak flow in late spring, with a rainbow appearing in the spray of the falls, viewed from the Mist Trail. Image ID: 12634 Location: Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
Sky Rock Petroglyphs, Volcanic Tablelands, Bishop, California
Photograph of Sky Rock Petroglyphs, Bishop, California.
For some years I’ve wanted to see the Sky Rock Petroglyphs, a secluded and unusual set of petroglyphs located in the Volcanic Tablelands near Bishop, California. The Sky Rock Petroglyphs sit atop of an enormous volcanic block. The petroglyphs — dozens of them in many shapes and forms — face the sky, thus lending Sky Rock its name. My understanding is that Sky Rock’s orientation toward the heavens is unusual, but also curious is that this set of petroglyphs sits alone, isolated some 5+ miles from the rich Chalfant, Chidalgo and Red Rock petroglyph collections. Chipped into the rock, through the darker “desert varnish” that typically covers the exterior of such rocks, the Sky Rock Petroglyphs expose the lighter-colored rock underneath. The history of Sky Rock is not clear to me, although I have seen a number of published suggestions that the Sky Rock Petroglyphs were perhaps created by ancestors of what are today known as the Owens Valley Paiute (or Shoshone-Paiute) people.
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| Sky Rock petroglyphs near Bishop, California. Hidden atop an enormous boulder in the Volcanic Tablelands lies Sky Rock, a set of petroglyphs that face the sky. These superb examples of native American petroglyph artwork are thought to be Paiute in origin, but little is known about them. Image ID: 26979 Location: Bishop, California, USA |
Sky Rock is a special place, indeed. It was fascinating to see it firsthand and consider the artist who, probably many hundreds of years ago, composed the intricate petroglyph forms. While looking at it we realized very few, if any, of the shapes were recognizable. In the way that other famous artists in history have done, Sky Rock’s talented creator produced a work that captivates and intrigues and will outlive him for centuries - a distinction that most artists (and photographers) hope to achieve.
Thanks for looking! I have a few more Sky Rock Petroglyph photos. Also see my gallery of California photos and Sierra Nevada photos.
North Lake, Dusk to Dawn
I suppose photos of North Lake shoreline in fall are cliche, in part because of the internet and the fact that so many photographers now visit this small area to photograph eastern Sierra fall colors during a few weeks each October. I still have yet to be there when a really good sunrise light show goes off. That said, it is a beautiful spot and I always enjoy at least one sunrise strolling the shoreline of North Lake each time I visit Bishop in the autumn. As I was editing my recent set of photos from Bishop Creek Canyon I found that I had, without intending to, garnered a series of nice images that capture views of North Lake across to Paiute Peak at different times of day. Not all of these are keepers, but they make an interesting set. I think I will keep #1, #2 and #5. These were taken in about a 12-hour span earlier this month when I was up there with Garry McCarthy.
 Sunset, alas no clouds. |
 Star Trails and Faint Pre-sunrise Alpenglow, Still Some Time until Dawn. We discussed trying to make this picture over beers and dinner the night before, but it sounded like it would be pretty damn cold and boring standing around in the dark while our cameras made hour-long exposures. Nevertheless, we decided to take a stab at it. This was composed in pitch black night, stumbling around with frozen fingers and wishing we had some hot coffee. I had no idea what it would look like but was hoping it would something like this. That’s not sunlight on Paiute Crag but alpenglow, which is light that reaches us before sunrise by refraction through the atmosphere. Alpenglow has a very warm, soft character. Photographer Galen Rowell is the one I think of when it comes to alpenglow images. |
 A Few Minutes After Sunrise. |
 20-30 Minutes After Sunrise |
 Morning, Frost on the grass. I found a pair of sunglasses right here. |
Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Colors
Photos of Eastern Sierra Fall Colors and Aspen Trees in Bishop Creek Canyon
Like moths to the flame, Garry and I made a banzai run* up to Bishop Creek Canyon to get some fresh air and check out the fall colors last weekend. The quaking aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) had been turning for about a week or so. We knew we missed the great conditions earlier in the week and indeed the photographic conditions were just so-so, with beautiful near-summerlike weather and nary a cloud in the sky. Most aspen trees at the higher elevations had good color but many were half stripped of leaves due to the recent storm. Lower elevations still have a ways to go, with much green still at Aspendel and the intake ponds. June Lake and Convict Lake are still early, peaking in perhaps a week or two I would guess. As for crowds, they were not too bad: we encountered just one photo group workshop and we only had to kung-fu a few pesky medium format photographers along the shore of North Lake each morning (note: for this I recommend the Gitzo limited edition “Crowd Special” that quickly transforms into bo and nunchaku). OK, that last part is a lie. Here are a few images in chrono order. Life is good!
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| Sage brush and aspen trees, autumn, in the shade of Bishop Creek Canyon in the Sierra Nevada. Image ID: 26060 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Sierra Nevada mountains and aspen trees, fall colors reflected in the still waters of North Lake. Image ID: 26061 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Sierra Nevada mountains and aspen trees, fall colors reflected in the still waters of North Lake. Image ID: 26062 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Fall colors and turning aspens, eastern Sierra Nevada. Image ID: 26065 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Bishop Creek and aspen trees in autumn, in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. Image ID: 26074 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Aspen trees, with leaves changing from green to yellow in autumn, branches stretching skyward, a forest. Image ID: 26073 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Bishop creek and turning aspens, south fork of Bishop Creek in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Image ID: 26071 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Aspen trees, fall colors, reflected in the still waters of North Lake. Image ID: 26077 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
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| Aspen trees in autumn, fall colors, eastern Sierra Nevada. Image ID: 26083 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA |
*banzai photographer (n): (1) a photographer with a working spouse and multiple kids each of whom has lots of activities that require driving all over the place during the week, help with homework in the evenings, and then driving all over the place on the weekends; (2) a photographer who crams five days of photography into a single weekend; (3) a photographer with a banzai attitude about life; (4) a photographer who photographs banzai trees.
A Return to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 47' 42.68" N, Longitude: 119° 19' 57.17" W, Coord: 37.79519°, -119.33255°
Filed under: California, Sierra Nevada, Yosemite on 9/7/2010
Photos of Vogelsang High Sierra Camp in Yosemite National Park
Last month I made a brief return trip to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, following my first visit in 2009. This time my father joined me, and we had a chance to spend a few days together in some of the most beautiful areas of Yosemite’s high country. Our last real hiking trip together was one we did with my sister about 15 years ago in Lyell Canyon, and previous to that was our climb of Mt. Whitney about 30 years ago — so both of us were really looking forward to getting together for this outing. Yosemite did not disappoint…
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| Cathedral Range peaks reflected in the still waters of Townsley Lake at sunrise. Image ID: 25764 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
We began with the usual slog up Highway 395, taking a detour to look at the ancient bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains (which I insisted upon visiting given my father had not seen them before). Blue skies accompanied us all the way, with barely a speck of wind, and the altitude proved to be no problem. After checking out the eons-old bristlecones we were soon back on 395 and reached Tuolumne Meadows by 5pm. Our day was capped with a walk along the Tuolumne River, a visit to Tenaya Lake and Olmsted Point for sunset and a great carb-load dinner at the Tuolume Meadows Lodge. (If you look closely you can see my dad in the below panorama of Tenaya Lake.)
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| Cloud’s Rest at sunset, viewed from Olmsted Point. Clouds Rest is one of the most massive — if not the singlemost massive — granite monoliths in the world. A vast lobe of Mesozoic-era granodiorite magma cooled to rock and was gradually uplifted to its present altitude of 9926 ft. Later, glaciers cut it into its present shape. Image ID: 25761 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
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| Tenaya Lake at sunset, panoramic view looking north, with Tenaya Peak (10,280′) on the right and Medlicott Dome (9,880′) on the left. Tenaya Lake lies at 8,150′ in the heart of Yosemite’s high country. Image ID: 25755 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 3150 x 14039 |
The following morning Dad chose to sleep in while I made a sunrise visit to Tioga Pass, a short ways up the road from the Tuolume Meadows Lodge. I was hoping to see a bear or some deer, but I had to settle for reflections of Mammoth Peak in the small tarns that are found in the meadows near the pass.
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| Mammoth Peak (12,117′) reflected in small tarn pond at sunrise, viewed from meadows near Tioga Pass. Image ID: 25759 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
We hit the trail after breakfast, choosing the Rafferty Creek route to Vogelsang. Although frowned upon by some as a pack trail, Rafferty Creek is a much shorter approach than the Lyell Canyon route and my dad, at 74 years, was not sure how his legs and back would feel about long route. It must be said that one advantage to taking Rafferty Creek Trail is that the bulk of the uphill work is done in the first 3 miles, with the last 4 miles being mostly not-too-difficult uphill slope through a pleasing series of meadows and forests. The hike took a while but was not particularly challenging, Dad being prepared and well-conditioned by a month of long pre-trip walks. We reached Vogelsang with little fanfare by about 3pm, just in time for siesta. We were lucky to receive one of the two person tents alongside the creek. And to top it off, there were no mosquitoes, it being too late in the season for the carniverous demons to practice their injurious profession upon my tender flesh.
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| Panoramic view of the Cathedral Range, from the summit of Vogelsang Peak (11500′). The shadow of Vogelsang Peak can be seen in the middle of the picture. Image ID: 25751 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
After a recumbent hour I remembered that one of my goals was to bag Vogelsang Peak, one of the two 11,500′ peaks that overlooks Vogelsang High Sierra Camp (the other being Fletcher Peak). I asked the camp manager to set a plate of dinner aside for me while I made a sunset hike to the peak, and she kindly complied, so I took off about 5pm. I encountered noone on the way up or down except for a few marmots. The route is not technical, being characterized as “pedestrian” in one online account I had read. I reached the top about an hour before sunset. What a view! My panoramic photo above (click it to see it larger) really does not do it justice. I really love those brief moments atop a summit, any summit, and this was no exception. I savored the lingering light as it lit the scene all around me, the Cathedral Range to one side and Half Dome in the distance on the other, alone atop this impressive granite height. The sun was still warm enough that my t-shirt was all I needed. There was no wind. The lengthening shadow of Vogelsang Peak pointed toward Bernice and Gallison Lakes and several peaks of the Cathedral Range, including Amelia Earhart peak, Parsons Peak and Simmons Peak, all about 12,000′. As one is wont to do when one finds oneself alone in a place of serene quiet and moving beauty, I pondered deep thoughts for a while. But not for too long, as I do not have the intellect of a philosopher. I ate my snack bar, recorded a bit of video, signed the peak register I found hidden in an old ammunition can among the rocks, and started back. On my way down to camp I was treated to a gorgeous view of Fletcher Peak reflecting a wash of gold across Vogelsang Lake. I gratefully wolfed down my dinner as I described the hike to my dad, then washed up and hit the sack. It was about a 10 mile day with almost 3000′ of elevation gain for me, so I slept well!
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| Fletcher Peak is reflected in Vogelsang Lake at sunset, viewed from near summit of Vogelsang Peak. Image ID: 25757 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
Dad let me take off before sunrise for some photography, so I walked up to Townsley Lake and made some exposures in the mirror-smooth waters. The German grad students who shared our dinner table in Tuolume mentioned that Vogelsang means “bird song”. On this very still dawn at Townsley Lake, where the only sound that broke the silence were bird chirps, the camp’s name seemed particularly apt.
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| Fletcher Peak (11410′) reflected in Townsley Lake, at sunrise, panoramic view. Image ID: 25752 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 4056 x 11953 |
After breakfast, we headed out to visit several of the lakes in the area. We passed by Fletcher Lake just a few yards from camp, then up over the rise to Townsley. Of most interest to me was Hanging Basket Lake, set in a small cleft (perhaps a hanging valley) at the top of a reasonably steep talus slope above Townsley Lake. My dad was game for it, so up we went. It was not too difficult, requiring just some patience to navigate the talus boulders and not twist an ankle. Hanging Basket Lake itself is rumored to hold lunker fish, given that few people visit it. Its waters are a striking deep green, and it is surrounded on three sides by sheer granite walls. What a spot. We tried to time our visit for when the sun would illuminate the entire cirque above the lake, and we guessed right:
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| Hanging Basket Lake (10601′), with Fletcher Peak (11410′) rising above on the right, panoramic view. Image ID: 25753 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 4056 x 11895 |
We continued our hike up to the meadows above Townsley Lake. We met a few more marmots, and found a toad in the grass. On the plateau above Townsley and Evelyn Lakes, we wandered by a series of beautiful tarn ponds. Several of them, not connected to any streams and thus safe from introduced stock trout, were absolutely plugged with tadpoles. As we walked along the edges of these ponds the tadpoles would splash through the shallowest few inches toward the deeper middle of the water. Other ponds were connected by a stream, being part of the drainage to Evelyn Lake which was our destination. Purple lupine flowers were blooming in abundance along the this stream, and we found a group of deer. We descended the slope to Evelyn Lake, reaching the sand beach along the western shore. We went for a well-deserved swim. The water was bracing but we dried off almost immediately in the warm weather and felt great afterwards. After Evelyn Lake, a few more miles took us past a couple of meadow-bound tarns, back to Fletcher Lake and once again to camp, After another fantastic meal, we spent our second night in Vogelsang Camp. Reports had been circulating on the internet prior to our trip that Mars would be making its closest approach to Earth in recorded history during our stay at Vogelsang, but I have since learned those reports were, in the usual internet-driven fashion, fanciful. Nevertheless, Mars was indeed quite bright each evening, following a few degrees behind the full moon as the two traversed the night sky.
Both Mars and the full moon looked down on me as I made my way up the short walk to Vogelsang Lake before dawn on our final morning. I recorded a time-lapse video of the sunrise breaking over Vogelsang Peak and sweeping down to Vogelsang Lake, which can be seen briefly at the beginning of this video and in full at the end of the video. Indeed, both Mars and the moon appear in the beginning seconds of the time-lapse, at the far right, but Mars is admittedly difficult to discern in the Youtube version. The video was an experiment to test out a external microphone on my camera, and to learn a little bit about recording video with an SLR still camera. You can see it with some comments at my earlier post about it.
Our second and last morning at Vogelsang Camp was relaxed and uneventful. As it was yesterday, this morning was warm, still, quiet and mosquito-free. We enjoyed another excellent breakfast, of the sort that breakfast afficionados such as myself record in our life list of notable breaking-of-the-fast achievements. There is something particulary satisfying about eating hearty food in spectacular outdoor surroundings. I feel justified in enjoying seconds of everything, rationalizing (hoping?) that I will burn the additional calories on the coming day’s hike.
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| Vogelsang Peak (11500′) and the shoulder of Fletcher Peak, reflected in the still morning waters of Fletcher Lake, in Yosemite’s gorgeous high country, late summer. Image ID: 25788 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
We returned via the Rafferty Creek trail, reaching the car in Tuolumne Meadows by about 1pm to began the long drive down 395 to Southern California. Wouldn’t you know it, the clouds which were totally absent during our time in the high country appeared just as we reached the end of the trail!
Vogelsang Reflections - Yosemite National Park
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 47' 34.72" N, Longitude: 119° 19' 45.19" W, Coord: 37.79298°, -119.32922°
Filed under: Sierra Nevada, Time Lapse, Video, Yosemite on 8/27/2010
Vogelsang High Sierra Camp and Tuolumne Meadows
My dad and I spent a great several days hiking around Tuolumne Meadows and Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. Vogelsang is one of my favorite areas of the Sierra Nevada, a series of 10,000′ basins filled with beautiful lakes and boasting many 11,000′ and 12,000′ peaks. We had spectacular weather, no mosquitoes, and bagged a new peak and at least a half dozen lakes. I shot this video with a Canon 5D Mark II and the time lapse was shot with a Canon 1Ds Mark III camera, 1300+ frames over two hours to produce about 25 seconds of time lapse video. The video was an exercise to test the function of the Sennheiser MKE 400 mic in an outdoor setting. It worked reasonably well. You can tell I did not get my video perfectly level on some shots — live and learn. Life is good!
Aspens in Fall Beside a Creek
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 11' 4.84" N, Longitude: 118° 33' 30.13" W, Coord: 37.18468°, -118.55837°
Filed under: Sierra Nevada on 10/7/2009
One image that just screams “eastern Sierra fall color” that I wanted to make when I last visited Bishop was one of turning aspen trees alongside running water. The three basins in the mountains above Bishop drain into the three three forks of Bishop Creek, and with aspen trees surrounding much of these forks I knew it was just a matter of looking to find a location that would yield a pleasing composition. I noted a few spots along the outlet of Lake Sabrina along with a couple possibilities along the outlet of North Lake but late in the afternoon when I surveyed the upper reaches of the south fork of Bishop Creek below South Lake I found what I was looking for: walls of color alongside a stream with enough water movement to form interesting blurs. This image was taken very near Parcher’s Resort.
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| Aspens turn yellow in autumn, changing color alongside the south fork of Bishop Creek at sunset. Image ID: 23323 Species: Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA  View this Image in Google Earth! |
The day I was in Bishop there were no clouds in the sky at all so contrast was a problem. I was finally able to find a composition with sufficiently low contrast after the sun had descended behind the peaks above South Lake. After that time the light passing through the trees and off the water was even enough to make good exposures without resorting to filters or any of that HDR / blended-exposure silliness. I simply set the aperature at its sharpest for this lens (f/11 on a 24-70 f/2.8 lens) and lengthened the exposure time until I nearly clipped the highlights in the stream. (Curious? See my post about Exposing to the Right and how to properly configure the camera to yield accurate histograms for this approach.) Correcting the white-balance, to account for the cool bias of the shady light, was about all I had to do in the RAW conversion.
Keywords: aspen, stream, creek, fall, eastern sierra, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn.
The Aspen Tunnel
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 13' 44.72" N, Longitude: 118° 37' 8.43" W, Coord: 37.22909°, -118.61901°
Filed under: Sierra Nevada on 10/6/2009
Along the road that runs beside North Lake in the Bishop Creek watershed is a section I have heard referred to as the “Aspen Tunnel“, an apropos name certainly. Tall quaking aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) on either side lean over the road, creating a impressive cylinder of color. If you are looking for a spot where you can point your camera up and shoot that classic “aspen trees reaching for the sky” shot (here’s another example), this is absolutely the easiest place I have found to do it. I first saw this spot in early October 2006 at which time the color in the leaves was rich and bright. I was there again most recently in late September 2009 when the trees on one side of the road were green while those on the other side were gold. This dichotomy of color is not all that curious: trees in a stand of aspens are typically clones of one another by virtue of their root system and reproduction mechanism; they tend to change color in unison.
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| 2006: Aspen trees displaying fall colors rise above a High Sierra road near North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon.
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| 2009: A tunnel of aspen trees, on a road alongside North Lake. The aspens on the left are still green, while those on the right are changing to their fall colors of yellow and orange. Why the difference?.
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The aspen tunnel spot is best photographed when the sun has risen fairly high in the sky. Go ahead and shoot the sunrise at North Lake from the usual spot. Then go for a walk around the lake (it’s a short and flat walk!) and kill some time wandering through the grove on the northwest side of the lake as you do so. When other photographers have departed (”the light is too harsh”, “I don’t shoot during midday”), you can make your way over to the aspen tunnel and have it largely to yourself. If you choose your angles properly you will find that trees on both sides of the road are richly colored by the strong backlighting of the mid morning sun. A polarizing filter will drop the sky to a deep blue. Keep in mind, the wider your lens, the more of the color you can pack into your composition and the more accentuated the effect of the polarizer will be. I tend to use lenses such as a 15mm fisheye and 16-35mm superwide zoom in this spot in an attempt to find compositions in which the viewer feels immersed inside a grove of intense color and tall thin trees. (A 24mm lens, often considered “wide”, is definitely not wide enough here.) It is not a good idea to change lenses here, in fact you’ll see the dust from the dirt road hanging in the air all around you. When a car or horse trailer drives past I cover my lens and step off the road for a few minutes until the dust has cleared.
Keywords: aspen tunnel, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn.
Natural History Photography with Infrared Light
I have recently taken to shooting infrared photos while I am out on photo excursions. The motivation for me is that, if I can easily and inexpensively produce a different type of photo from what I normally shoot, all the while not affecting my ability to shoot traditional color photos, then why not give it a try. The upside is that I might produce a few more quality, interesting images. The downside is that if the effort may be an abject failure, but if it does not cost me much in time or money then the risk is acceptable.
For instance, while I was tooling around the Bishop Creek watershed photographing fall colors, I took along my Panasonic Lumix LX3 that has been converted to shoot true infrared. What this means is that I can whip this tiny but high quality camera out of my pocket and blast off some infrared shots spontaneously. Infrared photography using external infrared-pass filters on a conventional digital camera typically requires long exposure times and a tripod, making for cumbersome shooting. However, if the camera is modified internally to allow only infrared light to reach the sensor, then long exposure times are no longer required, and one can shoot infrared photos handheld. This really makes having an infrared camera along sensible and productive. Several companies exist to perform these modifications, and they are reasonably inexpensive. Plus, you can always have them convert the camera back to visible light again (for a fee) if you don’t like the results. Probably the most popular cameras for infrared conversation right now are the Canon G9/G10 (and soon to be G11) line, but I prefer the wider angle of the Lumix LX3 so I bought a second one and had it infrared-converted. This particular image comes from the Table Mountain area, when the late afternoon sun was dropping behind the cliffs, leaving much of the hillside in shadow but the aspens in side light.
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| Aspen trees in fall, eastern Sierra fall colors, autumn. Image ID: 23320 Species: Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Here is another example I was quite happy with, a single Joshua Tree framed against a deep black, cloud-free, mid-morning sky. In this case, having an infrared camera along allowed me to shoot longer than I would normally have done. The light in Joshua Tree is really only good for about 30-60 minutes after sunrise, beyond that it is too harsh to shoot good images. However, the harsher and stronger the light becomes, the greater the amount of infrared light that is reflected by certain subjects such as plants. For this reason, infrared photography is usually at its best — in midday — when visible light photography is often at its worst. The two compliment one another well.
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| Joshua tree, sunrise, infrared. Image ID: 22888 Species: Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
I’m pretty happy with my little infrared-converted LX3 and its ability to shoot quick and reasonably high-quality infrared images. (Not to mention that we love our regular LX3 for snapshots and family photos.) However, I should mention there are some limitations to shooting infrared this way. The optics of todays digital cameras are designed for visible light, in particular, the wavelengths of light in the visible spectrum and how they pass through lens glass-air and glass-glass interfaces. Infrared light passes through the lens and into the sensor in a somewhat different way than visible spectrum light. I have found that this manifests in images that are softer than one would expect with visible light, and are sometimes prone to a vague “hot-spot” in the center of the image. The hot-spot seems to be in the blue color channel only, in my experience with the LX3, and only presents when the lens is at its widest angle (24mm-equivalent). By zooming in even a little bit, the hot-spot issue is alleviated. From the information I have read on some of the internet infrared photography websites, I think other cameras may exhibit both of these issues (soft focus, hot spots) as well but I am not sure as I have only used the LX3 in infrared. I believe the hot spot is a property of the camera sensor and the angle at which the light reaches the sensor, while the soft focus (most notably corner softness) is a characteristic of the optics and their transmission of light (infrared) in wavelengths quite different from those for which the lens was designed (visible). Usually I pull out either the red or green color channel to produce a black-and-white image, so the hot spot in the blue channel is not a great problem, but in those images in which I think I want the blue channel I just zoom in a little and all seems to be well. Also, the hotspot is not present in all images, it seems to have something to do with the direction of the sun and how intensely the subjects in the center of the image are reflecting infrared. Image softness is a property of infrared photography in general, and seems to me to be ameliorated somewhat by the strong contrast that infrared images typically have. In other words, the strong black-white contrast of an infrared image seems to more than make up for the soft detail, when the image is viewed as a whole.
Like this? Here are more infrared photos.
Keywords: infrared, joshua tree, yucca brevifolia, aspen, populus tremuloides.
Infrared Photo of a Giant Sequoia Tree
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 30' 48.52" N, Longitude: 119° 35' 55.67" W, Coord: 37.51348°, -119.5988°
Filed under: California, Infrared, National Parks, Sierra Nevada, Yosemite on 10/1/2009
One tree in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) is my favorite. Its huge, reasonably symmetric, and sits somewhat alone in meadow clearing so that morning light can illuminate almost the entire tree nicely. Plus, its a nice 2 mile run up through the grove from the parking lot. Usually when I arrive at The Tree I am the only person there, having seen noone on the way up the hill. It was the same this time. What a beautiful morning. I took my tiny mikro-pokket-infraredfotokam along with me and shot some photos. Below is my favorite one.
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| Giant sequoia tree towers over surrounding trees in a Sierra forest. Infrared image. Image ID: 23304 Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Like this? Here are more infrared photos.
Keywords: giant sequoia, infrared, mariposa grove, yosemite national park, Sequoiadendron giganteum.
Banzai Run To Bishop Creek and Rock Creek
I got reports that the Eastern Sierra fall colors in the Bishop Creek Canyon basin were starting to peak at higher elevations, and that one or two weather developments in the coming week might affect the weekend of 10/3-4, so I decided to jam up to Bishop (5 hours from my door to Schats bakkery!) at the last minute. It was a little stressful since we were in the middle of negotiating the purchase of a new home, but when photo opportunities develop what can one do? I was able to go, thanks to my understanding (and beautiful) wife. I shot Rock Creek basin on Sat 9/27 and all three Bishop Creek basins on Sun 9/28. Rock Creek: Many years ago, when I was running in high school, my team would do some high altitude training in June Lake and Mammoth each summer before starting the racing season. One year our coach dumped us at Toms Place and said “See you guys at the top of Rock Creek”. Huh? We ran the entire way up the canyon, ending up at Rock Creek Lake, it was crazy. Well, I’ve always wanted to revisit Rock Creek, so went up there on Saturday when I got to Bishop for a look at the aspens and lake. The color is about peak and looks good in areas, but I was not impressed with how “thin” it is, i.e., I did not see huge swaths of color around Rock Creek Lake, but rather smaller stands of aspens. I did not find the angles I was looking for. It sure was easier driving up to the lake than running. Bishop Creek: it is ON RIGHT NOW. Higher elevations are at peak with lots of lime-green and yellow color, large patches are near 100% yellow. The trees look pretty clean, only saw a few with black on the leaves and it was not enough to affect photos. North Lake looks fantastic, but is often crowded on weekend mornings. Fortunately I found a new vantage point there that I had largely to myself Sunday morning. The aspen tunnel from which I shot some of my favorite wide shots a few years ago is not as impressive right now, and strangely half of it is green while the other half is yellow (you can see it in the slideshow below). Sunrise at North Lake begins at 6:45am, alpenglow 30-40 minutes earlier, so I’ll save you the trouble of guessing. I forgot pants and only had my shorts, so it was pretty chilly standing beside the lake to catch alpenglow at 5:45am:
 North Lake sunrise alpenglow, three frame panorama, 1DsIII / 24-70. |
Lake Sabrina had plenty of yellow aspen stands around the lake, but I spent little time at Sabrina this visit. I did go to my favorite stand of very tall aspens near Sabrina to shoot epic wide stuff but the trees were still somewhat green so, while the angles look good, the color is less than epic. In fact, in many areas the taller aspens in all the basins are holding green while the scrub aspen are the ones going full yellow/orange right now. The grove above Aspendel looks good for that “up the basin” shot with the grove in the foreground. However, Cardinal Pond in Aspendel is totally green at this moment, as is Intake II. The most impressive swaths of color are in the South Fork, especially from Table Mountain campground up to South Lake. If weather cooperates and no blow comes through, lower parts of South Fork will come online and turn full yellow in the next week or so, already there is a mix of lime green / yellow in the lower parts of South Fork. And the good thing about South Fork is that the aspen stands are so accessible there is a lot of easy shooting to do, and they are so large that when they turn full color it will look great. Cross your fingers for no wind. Give it one week, two at the most, maybe less if the cold snap forcast for midweek materializes. On one weather source I heard mention of a second front suspected for next weekend (10/3-4). Some shots from Saturday and Sunday: Rock Creek Lake 9/27 and Bishop Creek Canyon 9/28 (North Lake, Sabrina, South Fork). All these images were shot in about 24 hours starting with a couple hours at the end of the day in Rock Creek, then from 5:45am until 5pm on Sunday with a short break to eat a tasty monster-sized burger and some delicious and heart-smart spicy fries at the Bishop Creek Lodge. After returning to Bishop I stoked up on caffeine and drove straight home. I always hate to leave the Sierras and hope to see the show again next fall.
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Bishop Creek and Rock Creek 9/27/2009 - Images by Phillip Colla |
Keywords: eastern sierra, 2009 fall color report, bishop creek canyon, rock creek canyon, aspen, photo, picture, image.
Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra
Update 9/28/2009: see my report and latest photos from Bishop Creek and Rock Creek (cool slideshow).
Update 9/24/2009: some reports are showing up. The most informative are from Inge Fernau, Greg Boyer, Cory Freeman and Parcher’s Resort. If you are a weekend warrior and trying to assess which weekend will be “peak”, keep in mind that the color change is a continuum that generally moves down from the higher altitudes as the days go by from late September to mid October. All one really needs to shoot good aspen photos is to find one good grove that can be worked from hours. Chances are good you can find something worthwhile to shoot during the next 2-3 weeks, provided a front or big blow does not come through and clean out all the leaves across the eastern Sierra. You can read between the lines in these reports and guess which dates many are focusing on.
A few years ago I made one of my banzai photo outings** to catch some of the fall colors in the Eastern Sierra. I managed to pull off two mornings’ shooting in the Bishop Creek Canyon basins, and one sunset run up to the Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountains, on a jam-packed weekend. The key was paying close attention to the reports coming in from other photographers, making an educated guess as to what area along Highway 395 would be most productive, and going for it. The fact that 2006 was a super year for fall color in the Eastern Sierra, and that my weekend was just about at peak for Bishop Creek Canyon, certainly helped. I’m hoping to make another run up there sometime in late September or early October. And, as I did before, I’ll be paying close attention to advice and reports from several sources, foremost among them the list below. Note that two photographers, Greg Boyer and Cory Freeman, currently live in Bishop and are basically eyes-on-spot for those of us outside the area; I give their reports more credence than others, especially their comments about timing. Thanks Greg and Cory.
- Inge Fernau / MagicalGlow.com. I first noticed Inge Fernau’s photography as a result of her incredibly rich fall color reports on Calphoto. How does she do it? She gets out there to so many places, then fills us all in with exactly what the conditions are. Inge’s blog is loaded with huge, beautiful images of the Eastern Sierra, and I’m hoping she publishes more of her fall color reports this year. Here is a two-part summary of her 2008 efforts, some spectacular images shown: 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 1 and 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 2.
- Greg Boyer / Greg Boyer, a photographer in Bishop, has some great posts about the Sierra Nevada near Bishop, including several recent color reports.
- Eastern Sierra Fall Color Reports, a thread at NaturePhotographers.net started by Bishop photographer Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions.
- Carol Leigh’s Calphoto.com. This is where many California photographers exchange information, especially timely, detailed reports concerning spring wildflowers and autumn foliage.
- Steven Bourelle / SierraVisionsStock.com. Steven Bourelle gave me advice prior to my last visit to Bishop for fall colors, and he was spot on with his recommendations. He now has an e-book guide about photography in the Eastern Sierra and Bishop Creek Canyon packed with good information. Furthermore, his blog features the recent post “Eastern Sierra Nevada Fall Colors” about planning for a fall foliage shoot in the Eastern Sierra. Update: I purchased Steven’s e-book on Bishop Creek Canyon. If you are planning a first visit there this fall, and you want to make the most of your time, this e-book lays out the key places to stop for photos. A real time saver.
- Dave Henry’s reports and tips at the Sacramento Bee are really good.
- G. Dan Mitchell. G. Dan Mitchell’s Sierra Nevada photography is superb (especially his Yosemite images), and his blog is informative and well-written. Dan has made a number of recent posts advising on E. Sierra fall color, including “Sierra Nevada fall color season – coming sooner than you think!” loaded with good information about what to expect and how to plan for autumn in the Sierra Nevada.
- John Wall’s California Nature Photographers. With John Wall at the helm, this blog features periodic posts from a wide variety of talented California nature photographers. I am sure there will be some fall color content appearing soon.
- A Flickr group was created by Kahlee Brighton to discuss Eastern Sierra color, with a meet-up being considered.
- Michael Frye, one of the best photographers around who focuses on Yosemite and surrounding areas, has a nice blog post about Autumn in Yosemite. (Michael Frye has THE BOOK on photographing in Yosemite, I own a copy and have referred to it often.)
- Parcher’s Resort, near South Lake in Bishop Creek Canyon, maintains a fall color report in season.
- Bishop weather forecast. (NWS)
- Pictures of Fall Color in Bishop Creek Canyon on Google Earth. If you have Google Earth installed, this provides a map with 18 of my favorite aspen images appearing superimposed where they were taken in Bishop Creek Canyon. You can zoom around and click any of the tiny thumbnails in Google Earth to see the image large along with captions. In a perfect world I would offer to actually walk around with your camera and shoot the photos for you, but in lieu of that this is the best I can do.
Shameless plug: I’ve got a nice collection of fall color photos. Check them out, they really are pretty good if I do say so myself. (Heck, when the colors are peaking its hard to take a bad photo of turning aspens.)
If the peak color does not conflict with my daughter’s volleyball tryouts and I can get away from Southern California for a day or two, perhaps I will see you in the Eastern Sierra under some aspen trees this fall.
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Aspens in Autumn, Populus tremuloides - Images by Phillip Colla |
**banzai photographer (n): a photographer with a working spouse and multiple kids each of whom have lots of activities that require driving them all over the place during the week, help with homework in the evenings, and then driving them all over the place on the weekends; a photographer who crams five days of photography into a single weekend; a photographer with a banzai attitude about life; a photographer with a niche business of photographing banzai trees.
Keywords: eastern sierra fall color, aspen, report, foliage, photography, picture, bishop, photo, autumn, image, information, description.
Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Color on Google Earth
Update 9/28/2009: see my report and latest photos from Bishop Creek and Rock Creek (cool slideshow) as well as a summary of other links on the web about fall colors.
OK, last post about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra. I am looking forward to getting up there and am optimistic this year will be a good one for turning aspens (Populus tremuloides). A couple photographers whom I follow have already remarked they have their reservations already. I was going through some of my favorite aspen shots from a few years ago, reminding myself where I shot them so I can be sure to revisit some of the same spots again. I put them on Google Earth (all of my images are geotagged so they feed automatically into Google Earth). If you have Google Earth installed, you can click either of these links. What **should** happen is that Google Earth should launch and soon after the 18 images will appear superimposed where they were taken in Bishop Creek Canyon. You can click any of the tiny thumbnails in Google Earth to see the image large along with captions.
I am now offering a new service: I will physically walk around with your camera and shoot the photos for you, process them and email you the best ones. It’s a win-win situation: you don’t need to ask your boss if you can ditch work in the middle of the week, you don’t need to make any tiresome hikes in the thin, cold, clean mountain air, you won’t make that long drive up 395 which cuts down on pollution, and the area is less crowded for me.
OK, that part was a lie, but in lieu of that showing you where I stood to take some nice photos is the best I can do. Enjoy.
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Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Color on Google Earth (click to launch this map in Google Earth) |
I also recently posted some links where one can soon see reports about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra. I don’t have reports to offer (I live in San Diego so its hard to just get up there for a day or two this time of year) but there are many talented California photographers who do share detailed and timely reports.
Shameless plug: I’ve got a nice collection of fall color photos. Check them out, they really are pretty good if I do say so myself. (Heck, when the colors are peaking its hard to take a bad photo of turning aspens.)
Keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, photo, picture, image, aspen, populus tremuloides, bishop creek canyon, google earth, geocoding, geotagging.
Pictures of Eastern Sierra Fall Color on Photoshelter
Pictures of Eastern Sierra Fall Color from my stock photo collection on Photoshelter:
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Eastern Sierra Fall Color, Aspens in Autumn - Images by Phillip Colla |
I recently posted some links where one can soon see reports about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra.
Besides my collection on Photoshelter (from which the slideshow above is sourced), my website — the one you are looking at now — has a nice collection of fall color photos.
Keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, photo, picture, image, aspen, populus tremuloides, bishop creek canyon.
Photo of Devil’s Postpile National Monument
We wrapped up our end-of-summer family vacation in Mammoth, which we love to visit in the summer. We took the bus to Devil’s Postpile National Monument, never having seen it before. Our timing could not have been better, we got there just before the sun went down, leaving the Devil’s Postpile itself in warm late-day light. The walk to the Postpile from the bus stop cannot even be called a hike, it is so short and flat. Next time, rather than visiting only the Devil’s Postpile, we’ll hike in from one of the surrounding trail heads and see some of the surrounding area too.
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| Devil’s Postpile, a spectacular example of columnar basalt. Once molten and under great pressure underground, the lava that makes up Devil’s Postpile cooled evenly and slowly, contracting and fracturing into polygonal-sided columns. The age of the formation is estimated between 100 and 700 thousand years old. Sometime after the basalt columns formed, a glacier passed over the formation, cutting and polishing the tops of the columns. The columns have from three to seven sides, varying because of differences in how quickly portions of the lava cooled. Image ID: 23266 Location: Devils Postpile National Monument, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Devil’s Postpile, a spectacular example of columnar basalt. Once molten and under great pressure underground, the lava that makes up Devil’s Postpile cooled evenly and slowly, contracting and fracturing into polygonal-sided columns. The age of the formation is estimated between 100 and 700 thousand years old. Sometime after the basalt columns formed, a glacier passed over the formation, cutting and polishing the tops of the columns. The columns have from three to seven sides, varying because of differences in how quickly portions of the lava cooled. Image ID: 23267 Location: Devils Postpile National Monument, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Interestingly, in spite of my having spent lots of time in Mammoth, I had never before seen Devil’s Postpile until last August. It is without a doubt the finest example of columnar jointing I’ve ever seen. The only previous example of such geologic columns that I have ever seen is in Yellowstone: the columns that make up Sheepeater Cliffs.
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| Sheepeater Cliffs, an example of columnar jointing in basalt due to shrinkage during cooling. Image ID: 19794 Location: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
Devil’s Postpile is much larger and more impressive, but Sheepeater Cliff’s is somewhat more accessible, being immediately adjacent to a road and picnic area. Both are pretty cool!
Trivia: Devil’s Postpile was originally part of Yosemite National Park, but the discovery of gold near Mammoth Lakes led to Devil’s Postpile being removed fromt the National Park and being placed in public land. A plan to dynamite the structure so that it would collapse into an adjacent creek to create a hydroelectric dam was proposed, but citizens managed to persuade President Taft to instead create the Devil’s Postpile National Monument to protect the spectacular geology and surrounding environment in 1911.
Keywords: Devil’s Postpile, photo, picture, Sierra Nevada, image, photograph, Mammoth Mountain.
Eastern Sierra Fall Colors
I recently posted some new images from a September 2009 visit to the Bishop Creek and Rock Creek watersheds, as well as a list of resources for learning more about where and when the fall colors can be expected to appear, and how to best photograph Fall Colors in the Eastern Sierra.
I’m looking forward to seeing the aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) again in the Eastern Sierra. Here are a few of my favorites, all photographed in the Bishop Creek Canyon watershed at the peak of the 2006 fall color season.
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| Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17547 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Aspen trees displaying fall colors rise above a High Sierra road near North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17501 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Aspen trees cover Bishop Creek Canyon above Aspendel. Image ID: 17528 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17498 Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn, photo, image, picture, photography.
Giant Sequoia Pictures
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 37° 30' 47.95" N, Longitude: 119° 35' 55.42" W, Coord: 37.51332°, -119.59873°
Filed under: California, Photoshelter, Sierra Nevada, Yosemite on 9/2/2009
Many of my giant sequoia pictures are now on Photoshelter, which is the source of this nifty slideshow. Sequoia trees really are the most majestic of all plants. They are the largest (i.e., most massive) life forms on earth, and they are nearly the tallest (exceeded only by their cousins the coastal redwoods in the Pacific Northwest). Giant sequoia trees are one of the longest lived organisms on earth, exceeded in longevity most notably by Ancient Bristlecone pine trees (Pinus longaeva). Enjoy images of these “pillars of the sierra”.
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Giant Sequoia Pictures - Images by Phillip Colla |
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| A giant sequoia tree, soars skyward from the forest floor, lit by the morning sun and surrounded by other sequioas. The massive trunk characteristic of sequoia trees is apparent, as is the crown of foliage starting high above the base of the tree. Image ID: 23260 Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
My website also has many giant sequoia tree photos (Sequoiadendron giganteum).
Keywords: sequoia, giant sequoia tree, photo, picture, image, Sequoiadendron giganteum, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, California, sierra nevada.
Photos of Glacial Erratic Boulders
Some years ago I posted a blog entry about photos of glacial erratic boulders on Olmsted Point in Yosemite National Park. Well, I was recently there and got a few more. Glacial erratic boulders are so named because they are erratic (i.e., differ materially from the naturally occuring stone nearby) and they were deposited by slow-moving glaciers, sometimes after having been moved a considerable distance (e.g., tens of miles) from their place of origin. The boulders are carried by the glacier and then either fall off the side of the glacier as it slowly slides along, or are simply dropped in place if a glacier melts away. Olmsted Point, high above Tenaya Canyon, is a great location for seeing glacial erratic boulders. The same glaciers that sculpted nearby granite monoliths Half Dome and Cloud’s Rest, seen in the background of one these photos, also left behind many glacial erratic boulders on the rim of Tenaya Canyon when it passed by.
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| Glacial erratic boulders atop Olmsted Point, with the massive granite monoliths Half Dome and Clouds Rest in the background. Erratics are huge boulders left behind by the passing of glaciers which carved the granite surroundings into their present-day form. When the glaciers melt, any boulders and other geologic material that it was carrying are left in place, sometimes many miles from their original location. Image ID: 23264 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Glacial erratic boulders atop Olmsted Point. Erratics are huge boulders left behind by the passing of glaciers which carved the granite surroundings into their present-day form. When the glaciers melt, any boulders and other geologic material that it was carrying are left in place, sometimes many miles from their original location. Image ID: 23265 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth! |
See also: Yosemite National Park photos.
Keywords: glacial erratic boulder, geology, granite, Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, glacier, rock, stone.
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Updated: February 8, 2012
