This was a short trip with modest ambitions. I was in need of a few nights camping and a general change of scenery. No strong itinerary or route to keep to this time. I wanted to get a least one good hike in. I had rented the Fujifilm 55-140 telephoto lens and wanted to dedicate time to photography sessions and understand where I could use that in the pictures I want to make.
The Eastern Sierra is my favorite part of California, and I try to visit it at least once a year. I had missed last year’s visit and it was time for a catch up. So I packed and gassed up the truck and headed east.
The goal for the first day was to make it to Bishop, a 5 ½ hour drive from the Bay Area. My focus for much of the day was to put down miles and I don’t have much to say on the first 4 hours of the day. The Central Valley, Sierra foothills, and Yosemite passed without any notable stops. I had places to be and the midday light wasn’t presenting anything worth stopping for.
The aspect that stood out most was the smell. Ponderosa Pine begin to enter the forest mix around 3000 feet elevation. That pine smell, especially the dry flinty notes in late summer, is one of the most classically Sierra things to me, and the first encounter on any trip is a statement of “welcome home”.
Once I made it past the eastern gate of Yosemite, I was done with the “get there” miles, and stopped to collect myself. I was back in Basin and Range country. The change going from the western slope of the Sierra to the eastern slope is quite abrupt. The white granite is traded for red and brown country rock. The pine for sage. And the sense of being in the forest is replaced with that of being an open plain, facing a wall of rock. I took a few quick shots, but my main interest was in making camp.
I made it to Bishop and started searching for dispersed camping options. This trip was a bit last minute and a bit play-it-by-ear, so I didn’t have camping options as well researched as I would for most trips. I searched some areas north of town, but didn’t find anything to my liking. I debated heading to another area to continue the search, but “sunset” here is much earlier thanks to the looming Sierra crest to the west. So I decided to go for the easy option and snag a spot in a BLM campground.
While a BLM campground is rarely anything special, it allowed me to spend the time watching the sunset progress across the mountains, rather than racing the sunset trying to find a spot to call camp for the night. Camp presented a good view of the light on both the Sierra range southwest of Bishop as well as the White range on the opposite of the valley. The immediate area wasn’t photogenic in itself (it is a BLM camp after all), but it did present a good opportunity to experiment with the longer telephoto zoom I rented for the trip.
I cooked dinner watching the light creep behind the Sierra crest. The way the air in the Sierra seems to hold the light is something else, as in this shot of the air adjacent to the peak being illuminated alongside it. After the light was gone from the mountains and the last light was illuminating the clouds, I happened to find this pair of complementary ones looking toward and away from sunset. And with that I called it a night.
