Category: tourism

Arches of the Alabama Hills

Lathe Arch. Alabama Hills.
Mobius Arch. Alabama Hills
Eye of Alabama Arch. Alabama Hills
Heart Arch. Alabama Hills

Following up from my previous post, after our Christmas morning breakfast of quiche, we broke camp and went about to explore some of the arches in the Alabama Hills. The Alabama Hills are  a collection of rocks and hills at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains just west of the town of Lone Pine just off of US Route 395. The rocks here have eroded in such a way as to form some fantastic shapes and arches which lend themselves to some amazing photo opportunities with the background of the Sierra. This was a popular spot for filming movies in the 1940s and 50s and there is a Museum of Western Film History located in Lone Pine.

Our explorations took us on a short dog-friendly hike that went past several arches including the Mobius Arch, perhaps the most notable arch. This is an ideal location for early morning photography, with the morning light catching the Sierra.  By afternoon when the sun crosses the crest of the Sierra the mountains are back lit making photography more of a challenge.  If you wish to visit the arches you can find an on-line map here.  There are apparently hundreds of arches scattered throughout the area, but a handful are easy to access. A Google search also found a guidebook to 72 of the arches. You can also view more of the photos I captured here.

Christmas in the Alabama Hills

Truck campers in the Alabama Hills at dusk.
Sunrise on Christmas Day. Alabama Hills
Truck campers in the Alabama Hills. Christmas morning.
Treve, Joann and Carson at camp in the Alabama Hills. Breakfast of Quiche cooking in the Diutch Oven.
Quiche on the Dutch Oven.

Christmas eve found us in the Eastern Sierra setting up camp in the Alabama Hills. There were four of us and two campers. Our son Aaron and his wife Serena joined us for the overnight camping trip, about 45 minutes south of their place in Big Pine. Part of our mission was to see if we could create a photo of our two campers worthy for Truck Camper Magazine’s calendar. It will remain to be seen if our photos make it into the calendar but we had fun scouting a location, setting up camp and creating photos. The location we picked had a view of the crest of the Sierra’s with the peak of Mount Whitney visible to the west and an outcropping of granite boulders to the east, hiding some of the other campers in the area.

The Alabama Hills is a recreation area managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Open to camping year round. Dog friendly and free of charge. There are no facilities though, so bring your own water.  Inclined to be hot in summer, we had mild winter temperatures, with the thermometer recording a low of 39 degrees overnight.

We’ve recently discovered Dutch Oven cooking and we put our oven to use cooking a savory Christmas eve dinner of chicken and rice. with chunks of chicken breast wrapped in thinly sliced ham and bacon. Breakfast was quiche with ham left over from an early Christmas dinner a couple of days earlier when our daughter and her husband rendezvoused with us on their way to Utah.

Bishop Tableland Petroglyphs

On the tablelands with Skypanel in the foreground and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the background.
Walking across the tablelands
Carson on the tablelands

With family together in Big Pine for a few days we decided to take a hike yesterday, December 22 to explore some of the petroglyphs on the volcanic tablelands near Bishop, California. Much of the tablelands are managed by BLM and and this suited us as a dog-friendly hike since we had three dogs among the six of us. This area is sprinkled with petroglyphs. Some are readily accessible by car, others require some rock scrambling and local knowledge. We visited two sites. I hesitate to say much about the locations since some of these rock art features have been vandalized or ripped off in recent years. A sorry state on the lack of respect we seem to have for the environment, our cultural treasures and our public lands. There is little known about when these artworks were created.  If you wish to find information on the tablelands and the petroglyphs, please contact the Bishop Visitor’s Center.

Holiday Getaway

 

Camping at the Hope Valley Sno Park.
Camping at the Hope Valley Sno Park.

Wednesday, December 20, after working a long day and into the night to keep my clients happy, we pointed our rig to the mountains for a holiday getaway. Part of our plan was to see how our camper performed under winter conditions, camping in a Sno Park for the night. Our drive took us through Sacramento and up highway 50 heading towards Hope Valley, one of our favorite mountain destinations. For many years we’ve visited Sorensen’s Resort in Hope Valley just south of Lake Tahoe; a delightful place to stay any time of year. Along the way we stopped at the Silver Fork Store in Kyburz to buy a Sno Park Permit; a requirement for parking in a designated Sno Park. We bought an annual pass for $25, figuring we may be doing exploring other winter wonderlands this winter.  We had the camper up, snug inside just as it was getting dark and the temperature was starting to drop.  A dinner of hot soup and bread felt good and we turned on the propane heater, and pulled our our books to read. It was snowing lightly as we settled in but it cleared in the night. I got up at 4:30 for a quick rest stop and stepped out into a crystal clear night, with stars shining above and sparking off the snow. The thermometer was recording an outdoor temperature of 10 degrees F and inside the propane heater was keeping the cabin at 50 degrees or so, a temperature that we decided was a bit warm for our winter sleeping bags. In the morning we woke up to a sunny day. Popped the top down and headed for breakfast a Sorensen’s Resort, three miles down the road. After a hearty and delicious breakfast and fresh coffee, we continued our journey down the East Side towards Bishop.

 

San Francisco’s Wave Organ

The Wave Organ
The Wave Organ
The Wave Organ
The Wave Organ
The Wave Organ

San Francisco is full of hidden surprises. The morning found me in San Francisco, having made my way to the Marina District to look a a project I’ll be photographing for a client. Having left the project I was in no hurry to make my way home with such a clear crisp day and the waterfront of the Marina beckoning me. I was on foot, having arrived by way of public transportation using BART and bus. Looking at a map and I noticed something at the end of the jetty labeled “Wave Organ. Unique acoustic sculpture on the bay.” I was intrigued so I made my way to the end of Marina Green Drive and on out to the end of the Jetty.  The Wave Organ is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture.  The concept was developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stone mason George Gonzales. Installed in 1986. To really appreciate this you need to sit on a bench and just let the sounds wash over you; a very subtle and gentle experience.  In addition to the wave organ, the location offers a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay with the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz in the distance.

Decisions

Area 51
Alien Tequila. An Abduction in Every Bottle.

October 10th, 2017. We’re on our homeward leg of our fall color trip. Our objective is to head for home. Crossing Nevada. For many people Nevada is a wasteland of desert, although I find the desert fascinating. Joann is driving and I’m watching countryside pass by. Suddenly I see a 30 foot tall alien flash by. I’m torn between making miles and stopping. Do I ask Joann to stop or keep my mouth shut and keep going. Sometimes my photographic ventures can try Joann’s patience. Keep driving for the sake of marital harmony, or stop and for my own sake. If I stopped for every thing that caught my eye we’d never make it home. So much along the route I find fascination; abandoned buildings, rusty farm equipment, abandoned gas stations; what I call rural decay. And then I wonder having just visited the Walker Evens exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), is this an influence of having been exposed to Evan’s work, over the years, or is there something universally fascinating about abandoned buildings, dilapidated store fronts and rusty tractors? Not that this qualifies as “urban decay, but it catches my attention. I ask Joann to stop, turn around and go back. An advertisement on the door says “Alien Tequila. An Abduction in Every Bottle.”  Strange things happen in the desert. We’re not far from Groom Lake, a top secret air base, often referred to as “Area 51.” This facility is clearly an opportunity to merchandise on the fascination of Area 51. An interesting stop in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Fall Color Trip: Conclusion

tjp_1796_4789

Our last stop on our fall color trip, on October 12, before heading home was Lundy Canyon, where we found a brilliant display of aspen with fall color on the slopes above Lundy Lake. Lundy Canyon is usually a good place to see fall color; above the lake the aspen were loosing their leaves, but at the elevation of the lake, and lower there was plenty of color.

Our final leg home took us through Yosemite National Park on Highway 120 where we noted that the dogwood and oaks were showing color near the western park entrance.

Overall we logged 2322 miles over 15 days, exploring the Eastern Sierra from Sonora Pass to Big Pine, then on through Nevada to Southern Utah where we made quick visits to Bryce and Zion National Parks and Cedar Breaks National Monument. The highlight of our trip though was the two nights we spent camped on the edge of a canyon in Kaibab National Forest. Quiet, remote with a grand view of the sunrise over the canyons below.

One of the frustrations of the trip was our lack of internet access. My intention was to share stories and photos every few days, and it seems between the lure of all the attractions and a dirth of WiFi connections, given our proclivity to travel off the beaten track, prevented me from realizing that goal. For the future, we both agreed that less driving, more time on foot, and more down time is in order. Stay tuned, as I work through the 2500 photos I collected I’ll be posting more.

Fall Color: Day Six

Day six of our fall color trip. We set up “camp” in a dispersed camping area near Hill Top Campground a few miles off of I95 in Nevada. Not quite as scenic as the established camp, but we stopped here due to a road closure. Enroute to Cedar Breaks today. We left the San Francisco Bay Area (home) on 9/27, heading up Highway 108 towards Sonora Pass. Not much color on 108, nor Virginia Lakes. Found a few patches of color at the Green River Campground. Spectacular color at Sage Hen Crest and the South Fork of Bishop Creek. Photos will follow when I have WiFi to upload from my laptop. WiFi seems scarce with our preferred method of travel; out Four Wheel Camper. More to follow on that account also. Stay tuned.

Horseshoe Bend

tjp_1750_0667_7x

Five miles below Glen Canyon Dam the Colorado River makes a 270 degree turn resulting in a spectacular view. When we were planning our trip, this is one destination we put on our list of potential stops. Little did we know how many people we would find there at dusk. We made this visit on May 5, parking in the dirt parking lot and walking the .7 mile walk to the lookout point. If you have any fear of heights this will give you a good case of vertigo. It’s a straight drop 1000 feet to the water with no railing and just the jumble of sandstone rocks on the rim. Once I had my camera set up I was afraid to move. Not because of the height, but because with wall-to-wall people, if I had given up my spot there would be little chance of finding another location. Arrive early and stake your claim. This was as much a social experience as a photographic experience. While I waited for the sun to set I chatted with the folks on the rim, finding out about their trips, and attempting to give them advice when they figured I must know what I was doing. There was also a wedding going on, a couple of unruly dogs, and drones flying overhead, although the drones came down when an irate visitor started yelling at the drone pilots to warn them that they were flying illegally.

There are probably two options for the best lighting on this scene; late morning when the sun is high in the sky and shining down into the canyon, or dusk. At dusk you have the challenge of shooting into the sun with the canyon in shadow. To compensate I captured multiple exposures and blended them using a tool for high dynamic range photography (HDR). This is a good technique when a subject such as this displays an extreme range of light values from highlights (the sun) to the dark shadows of the canyon.

Hiking Wire Pass

 

 

Wire Pass hike
Wire Pass hike
Wire Pass hike
Wire Pass hike
Wire Pass hike

On May 4 we made this hike into a 3.4 mile out and back, from the trail head on House Rock Valley Road to the narrows of the slot canyon. Our dog Carson was happy to hike with us off leash, one of the advantages of hiking in remote areas of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. The trail does connect with the Buckskin Gulch system, so you can certainly make a longer hike out of it. The hike follows a wash for about a mile before you enter the narrows. We walked through the narrows until we came to a large bolder with a 10 foot drop. At that point we turned around, hiked back out of the canyon and found a trail going up and and around the narrows, at which point we entered the canyon again from the other end, hiking back to the bolder. While in the canyon, I broke out the camera and tripod to see what I could do with the sculpted sandstone. The light and shadows and vertical sandstone walls give this canyon an other-worldly experience. Two-wheel drive with high clearance is recommended and we had no problem driving the road in with our Subaru Forester. The road was dry. Wet weather might be another matter so check with the BLM office regarding road conditions.

More photos here  and a map and track of our walk here