The time was ripe this weekend for a visit to Yosemite Valley and perhaps other places, so a two-day photo trip was in order. As is sometimes the case when I do these short up-and-back runs, some things happened according to plan and others, uh, evolved.

I left the SF Bay Area at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The plan was to head to the Valley early and then possibly get on the wait list for a camp spot with the rest of the plan being to shoot spring subjects there for a couple days. Shortly after passing through the south entrance I came upon an area where I often find dogwood blossoms a bit later in the season, and I was surprised to find extensive patches of flowers still in pretty good shape. In addition the rain of the day before and the filtered light from building clouds made for quite good shooting conditions – not typical for early June. In any case, I got sidetracked shooting the dogwood blossoms – and talking to another photographer, Teresa (?) who told me she works at Adolph Gasser in SF.

By the time I got to the Valley the light was less than stunning, both from the later-than-expected hour and because clouds were building up. I like rain and clouds in the Valley when the clouds drop down and shroud the cliffs and waterfalls, but these clouds were just high and, well, boring. I decided I’d make my first real stop the campground reservation kiosk near Curry. When I found out how far down the waiting list I would be I decided to change plans and aim for a Forest Service campground in Lee Vining Canyon on the east side. After taking care of a few remaining bits of business in the Valley (a nap to partially recover from my 3:30 a.m. wake-up and photography of some quite green meadow scenes) I headed back up out of the Valley and turned right toward Tuolumne and Tioga Pass.

This part of the Sierra is currently in that in-between stage where it isn’t winter any more (there are snow patches but most areas at road level elevations are clear) but it isn’t quite summer yet (although some grasses are starting to come up, there are very few flowers up high and there is a lot of standing and flowing water… and mud.) With the building clouds and more or less steady light to moderate rain, I did very little photography on the west to east drive – though I did stop long enough at Tioga to enjoy snow flurries!

From here I headed down to Lee Vining Canyon, and then next hour or hour and a half was devoted to grabbing a campsite at the Aspen campground, getting an espresso at Latte’ Da in Lee Vining, and then enjoying the first fish taco dinner of the season at “Whoa Nellie Deli” (a.k.a. “The Mobil Station”) at the 120/395 junction. It continued to rain lightly and the clouds were not conducive to photography (some are, but not these…) so I decided to do a bit of scouting at Mono Lake and back up toward the northern end of the June Lake Loop. During the last hour of potential good light the clouds began to break up a bit over the Sierra crest and I believe I came up with some dramatic photographs including distant views of Mono Lake with dark clouds overhead and some images from the June Lakes Loop area. We’ll see soon…

On Sunday I was up at the usual awful hour so that I could be at Mono before dawn. I suppose that if I were asked to describe my perfect “A+” Mono Lake dawn conditions they might be something like this: Interesting textured clouds overhead, but a clear view of the Sierra crest with a few dramatic clouds on the peaks; smooth water on the lake reflecting the patterns of clouds and peaks, unobstructed dawn sunlight coming under the clouds from the east.

This was not an “A+” sunrise – more like a “B-” I’d say. However, even a B- sunrise has some potential if you think about shooting it a different way and remain open to possibilities that you might not notice on the “perfect sunrise” day. The predawn blue tones were wonderful, and the sunrise light was a bit subtler than usual. After doing a few of the obligatory “icon” shots I turned my attention to some different and closer views of the tufa towers. Again, we’ll see soon…

My tradition after finishing up at Mono is to finally get some breakfast (a muffin from home, eaten at a picnic table near the parking lot) and then get a morning coffee back in Lee Vining. After accomplishing this I headed back toward Aspen camp to break camp – but was distracted along the way by a familiar grove of aspens that I’ve tried to shoot many times in the past. Previous encounters with this little grove have been in the fall and often late in the day – so the newly leafed-out aspens in morning light caught my attention, and I worked this subject for a while before finally packing and heading up toward Tioga Pass.

By the time I crossed the pass the soft morning light had been replace by some bluish haze and very harsh light. Even though the recently thawed terrain looked very interesting and clouds were building to the east I wasn’t sure whether I would have much luck photographing it. I had more or less decided to just enjoy the scene and not photograph, when I did find a compelling scene of a flooded meadow with mounts Dana and Gibb in the background. I worked with the images from this area a bit today and they seem promising. Once again, we’ll see…

Continuing on along Tioga Pass Road I came again to Tuolumne Meadows. The meadows are just beginning to turn green in all but the most waterlogged sections, though the best wildflower displays are still weeks away. I stopped at a rock outcropping in the middle that I often visit at the start and end of each season. This time I encountered a woman photographing trees and rocks in this unforgiving light and as I walked past I said, “tough light!” Her husband soon joined her and we got to talking a bit. They had just finished attending a workshop in the eastern Sierra and were (admirably!) practicing composition skills and so forth even it this very difficult light. As we arrived back at our cars I finally introduced myself and they said, “Oh, we know who you are!” They were Sue and Neal – a.k.a. SueAndNeal on Flickr.

Back in the car for more driving, and a few “wildlife” photography opportunities. The first – the infamous marmots at Olmsted Point – didn’t lead to much, but I had a better opportunity near the junction with the road to Yosemite Valley where a mother bear and two cubs showed off their tree climbing abilities. I had a 400mm lens, but as to whether or not this was enough, we’ll see…

Given the returning clouds I decided to try a visit to the Mariposa Grove of redwoods rather than sticking around in the Valley for (yet another) sunset. After a good long drive to the entrance to the grove I found out that I had to head back to Wawona and take a shuttle. Considering this development and the huge crowds here I was starting to get a bad feeling about photographing this subject during peak season. However, since I had driven all the way over here I went ahead and took the shuttle up to the entrance to the grove. I had perhaps an hour and a half there before I caught the final shuttle back to my car. Despite the crowds I think I managed to come up with some interesting and crowd-free photographs of redwoods and, perhaps more interesting to me, a nearby area of burned forest. Once again, we’ll see…

A shuttle ride back to Wawona and a few hours of driving later and I was home before midnight.