Just back from a few days in the slightly smoky (nothing compared to the rest of California) Yosemite high country in the Young Lakes area. At the moment I’m wading through hundreds of emails that came in while I was gone – so if you emailed me you can expect a reply before too long.

The three Young Lakes are at about 10,000′ and a one day hike in from Tuolumne Meadows in the Yosemite NP. I’ve the area quite a few times in the past, usually in late-August though about mid-October but this is the first time I’ve gotten out there in early July. I was looking forward to photographing a particular panorama of the Cathedral range from a beautiful lupine-filled high meadow where the trail crosses Dingley Creek. It was beautiful, but about a week shy of being “lupine-filled” and the brownish haze floating up from the Central Valley was not quite what I had in mind. Maybe next time!

About those mosquitos… Has anyone else noticed that the intensity of the Sierra wildflower displays is almost perfectly proportional to the density of the mosquitos? Until this trip I had three Really Awful Mosquito stories I used to tell – two from the Sierra and one from The Yukon.

Now I have four. They were awful at the lower Young Lake, which isn’t surprising considering the much of the shoreline is essentially a bog. I spent about 13 hours in my bivy sack the first evening/night to escape them, and the next morning thought I’d see if the middle and upper lakes were better. They weren’t. I finally got a bit of relief by climbing a good distance above the upper lake, but then it was time to descend.

Although photo opportunities were somewhat limited by the smoke, I’m hopeful that I’ll have a few to post from this trip before long.