Recently I posted a string of photographs from a recent trip to the Seattle area, some of which were different aesthetically and technically from what I usually do. I’ve pretty much gone through the images from that trip now, and over the next week or so you will see more photographs from my early August week-long backpacking trip in the southern Sierra Nevada.
My friends and I entered the back-country near Cottonwood Lakes from Horseshoe Meadow, crossed New Army and Crabtree passes to get into the Kern River basin west of Mt. Whitney, wandered up a section of the John Muir Trail, and then travelled east over Shepherd Pass to leave the Sierra.
Photographically, it was a tough trip, for a few reasons. Two weeks earlier I had backpacked into the Ansel Adams wilderness near the Minarets and Mounts Ritter and Banner, staying several days at Ediza Lake and then at Thousand Island Lake. On that trip, the conditions were ideal for mountain photography: beautiful clouds building to afternoon thundershowers, wildflowers still blooming, meadows green, and so forth. The southern Sierra trip was a whole different beast. First, the terrain was much higher and more austere – we often spent significant time at or above timberline. In addition, we travelled every day, often walking through very impressive and high terrain during the middle of the day – a hard time to photograph this kind of country – and ending up quite tired in the evenings. The extraordinary drought conditions in the southern Sierra this year also made certain areas a bit less photogenic than they might normally be, especially since the sky was completely cloudless during the whole trip.
So it goes. When conditions are wonderful – as they were on the earlier trip – I consider myself to be very lucky and I shoot as much as I can. When things are less conducive to photography, I still shoot quite a bit but I also may focus a bit more on the enjoyment of the trip itself.
In any case, watch for some photographs from this true high Sierra trip over the next few days.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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