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 mm 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 In the process of confirming the conifer species, I found this illustration of Sierra trees by altitude. . 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.
For all the trips I’ve taken, I still hadn’t spent time in the Alabama Hills. I’d passed by it numerous times heading north or south on I-395, but it was never the destination itself. It is about as far from the Bay Area as one can be and still be by the Sierra, and the furthest from home I had considered for this trip. And the weather was very comfortable, and was interested in some things around that. So that seemed like a good first destination, with the option to begin working my way back whenever felt right. So I grabbed a few supplies within Bishop and started the brief journey south.
The area has seen a surge in visitors since 2020, leading the BLM to place restrictions on dispersed camping in early 2023. (Since my visit, they’ve added a permit requirement.) Despite these restrictions and it being a Saturday, I had surprisingly little difficulty finding a campsite. I staked my claim and enjoyed the view of the Sierra Crest while I ate my lunch.
I proceeded to spend the afternoon wandering around, checking out various landmarks, and getting my bearings for the area. Despite knowing the area from maps, I was surprised how small it felt in person. Within a couple hours I felt I had visited the majority of the notable sites. I hiked the short loop to Mobius Arch as well as some other spurs. I drove some loops.
Much of my exploration was an attempt to make sense of the area photographically. The Sierra Crest forms an imposing wall that dominates any wide shot. The granite is white in midday light and has a character that fools the eye into thinking everything is equally far away and photos lack a sense of depth. The sun disappears behind the range an hour before sunset and gold hour light is non-existent. Sunrise is as impressive as sunset is mundane, but it’s after noon at the moment. The boulders provided an endless opportunity to hunt for forms made of rock and shadow, but I wasn’t seeing much in them then at the moment.
After the light disappeared behind the peaks and the mountains were in shadow, some atmospheric perspective began to be visible in the air. The undifferentiated wall of rock started to take on a third dimension as some ridges came forward and others recessed. The scene was helped by the partial clouds over the range to receive the warming sunset light. This gave me an opportunity to play with the telephoto lens I had rented and try to pull some minimal compositions out that relied more on color and texture than subject matter. I managed to get a few that I was happy with, but overall was still trying to make sense of when best to employ the lens.
The sky turned more vibrant as I pulled back into camp. I ran up the adjacent hill to get a wider shot. My truck provides a useful compositional element in instances such as these.
