Autumn in the Sierras: Part 1
October 27, 2011 | By Nick Carver
Well, October is coming to an end and I'm happy to say that I did a fair amount of traveling in the past 27 days. The first trip this month was to Monache Meadows for some camping and off-roading. Just 8 days after that, I took a solo trip to Bishop, CA to capture the fall color over the course of a few days. I'm still working my way through the photos from that trip with the first batch featured here in this post.
As the departure day for my trip rolled around, I had feared I'd missed the fall color. I'd been watching the fall color reports (at this awesome site) over the previous couple weeks and it looked as though everything around Bishop had already peaked. But much to my delight, I was wrong! Turns out the color was peaking in exactly the areas I wanted to be in exactly the days I was there. Absolute perfection!
I left Southern California early, arriving in Bishop by about noon. So after checking in and getting some turkey in my stomach, I headed out to the Sabrina Basin area to see what the color was like.
I was, uh, dumbfounded to say the least. My mouth was agape. Literally. It was ridiculous. For an east coaster, it might not have been anything special, but for me, I really could not believe how colorful it all was. I'd never seen such vibrant yellow leaves before. And so much of them! Ah...I was like a kid in a candy store. Plus, the picturesque crags and peaks towering over these gorgeous Aspens...man-oh-man, it was a treat. I hope the pictures will do it justice, but I'm betting not. Not because I think the pictures came out bad or anything, but because there's really no way a photo could record the child-like amazement of my very first encounter with true fall color.
Am I coming across as a bit callow?
Anyway, so I spent the first part of the day shooting in a nice patch of bright yellow aspens, just soaking in the color. The good thing about fall color is that it's one of the few things in landscape photography you can shoot in midday light and still get decent results. In fact, I could make the argument that fall color is best photographed in midday light (but I still think sunrise or sunset is best). You just need to position yourself so the leaves are a little backlit by the sun.
For sunset, I decided to hit the Piute Pass Trail up near North Lake. I was hoping to hike up into an area where some mountain peaks would catch the sunset light. See, the problem with shooting in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains is that you're in the EASTERN Sierra Nevada Mountains. That means sunrise is when these mountains get the good light and unless you have clouds, sunset is pretty much nothing.
The hike was tough and steep and I didn't get nearly as far as I originally planned, but I got a few good shots with sunset light on the Piute Crags.
So, that marked the end of day 1. Now I originally planned to get up around 5:15 the next morning to get in position for the sunrise. I set my alarm, got to bed early and was raring to go. But apparently my body wasn't on the same page as my mind. Instead, I slept right through my alarm...2 hours past my alarm, in fact. I wanted to kick my own ass, but I'm not that flexible.
I hustled out to my pre-determined sunrise location overlooking the Sabrina Basin and although I didn't get the very first light of the day, it was early enough yet to get some good shots.
These next two shots are very similar, but I still can't decide which I like better. I'm leaning towards the second one down.
^ Click for a larger view
Then it was off to Lake Sabrina for the final shots of the morning.
^ Click for a larger view
Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 of this trip!
