I drove out of Santa Barbara to the Eastern Sierra Nevada with the intention of photographing the fall colors over the weekend. I had reports from Carol Leigh's excellent fall color hot-sheet that the fall colors were near peak on the Eastern Sierra. The plan was to explore the Bishop creek and the Rock creek drainages. If they did not prove fruitful enough, then I would push on to June Lake or Lee Vining canyon. I had researched the area before by looking at previous fall color pictures from Vern Clevenger and Galen Rowell .

The Sierra Nevada mountain range, which runs north-south has very different characteristics on its eastern and western slopes. The western slopes of the Sierra contains the great parks like Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon and is flanked by the fertile central valley. The western slopes are gentle and relatively rich in rain from the moist air that comes in from the pacific ocean. On the eastern side, the rain shadow of the Sierra has created the Great Basin Desert. The eastern slopes are much more rugged ----the Sierra crest drops within a few miles on the eastern side from 14,000ft to the 4,000ft floor of the Owens valley. On the other (eastern) side of the Owens valley again rises the Inyo and White mountains which again reach heights as large as 14,000ft, thus giving the Owens valley the moniker of the Deepest Valley. The US 395 which runs along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, is one of the most spectacular alpine scenic highways in the US. The scenery impresses through its contrast: jagged snow covered peaks which rise steeply out of a sagebrush desert.

The first stop was the interagency visitor center at Lone Pine, where I was told that the fall colors had not yet come to the Bishop area. Turned out that this bit of information was partly wrong: Bishop itself did not have fall colors yet, but at higher elevations, the color was at its peak. The next stop at the Inyo national forest ranger station at Bishop confirmed it. I was told that the highest campgrounds (9,000ft and above) were closed, but the rest were open. I drove up 168 and began to see the first signs of color around 6,000-7,000 ft. I wanted to scout out some sunrise locations for the next day: so I drove straight to the end of the road at North lake and parked the car. Unlike New England, the fall colors in the Sierra mostly consist of aspens. The lake shore was golden yellow with Aspens. I took a few pictures and made a mental note of locations to come back to next morning. I drove back and found a camp site at the Lower Intake campground a few miles from North Lake.

I woke up one and a half hour before sunrise, had breakfast and drove up to North lake. It was cold, but not unpleasantly so --there was some amount of frost on the grass at my feet. I set up my tripod on the east side of the lake and waited for the sun to strike the mountains rising up from the lake on the west. There were no other photographers, but quite a few fishermen.

The sunrise alpenglow did not disappoint.	I tried both horizontal and vertical compositions
The classic view of North Lake with fall colors.	As the light grew stronger, it lit up the aspens as if with a spotlight, while the lake surface in the background remained in dark shadow.
Backlit aspens.	In horizontal format too.

I decided to make a circumnavigation of the lake and keep photographing. The aspens looked best with back lighting and to take advantage of it, I ended up again near the road.

As the sun rose, the light deteriorated and I decided to stop photographing and go scouting for more locations. As I loaded my gear on the car, I discovered that I had lost my 52mm polarizer. There was little chance of being able to find it ---so I consoled myself that at least I had a 52mm-62mm step up ring and a 62 mm polarizer. I drove up to lake Sabrina which was set beneath imposing looking peaks. Turned out, Sabrina is a partially artificial lake with a dam at its lower end to hold back the water. The pristine quality of the setting was slightly marred by a concrete boat launch ramp. I turned back and tried to photograph the colors next to the road along the Bishop creek (north fork). Here I had my next bit of disaster when I dropped my 81A warming filter and lens cap into the fast flowing stream. It disappeared among the boulders without a trace. I cursed myself for being so clumsy and packed up my gear to drive down towards Bishop. Along the way, there is a small hamlet called Aspendell with beautiful strands of aspen; but I could not find a good composition.

Once I got back to Bishop I bought a lens cap to protect my lens and wandered into Galen Rowell's Mountain Light gallery. Rowell has been my long term photographic hero and I had seen his gallery in Emeryville before, but the collection here was more extensive. Unlike many other landscape photographers, Rowell never used any format larger than 35mm. Nevertheless his high quality enlargements (16X24) made from 35mm looked very good to my amateur eyes. Quite a few of Rowell's photographs were made next to a pond in Bishop. I decided to go and look for this pond; but after more than one hour of driving around in dusty roads and talking to the visitor center downtown, I could not really find the place. But I did discover a nice sunrise location right by the road next to the Owens river.

Satisfied with my exploration, I turned back and drove back up Bishop creek and took the south fork which took me all the way to South lake. South lake was ringed by rugged peaks all around, but like Sabrina it had a dam and a boat launch. I decided to come back next morning to watch the sunrise and drove back along the south lake road. The colors along south lake road were more intense and there was a pretty waterfall visible right off the road.

Sierra granite and fall colors. The shadows were illuminated only by light from the sky which gave the white granite a blue tinge.	Turning aspen with green, yellow and orange leaves.

There were a lot of photographers along the south fork. Turned out quite a few of them were part of a Mountain Light photo workshop led by Justin Black . Everybody was shooting digital ---I felt like a dinosaur until I saw somebody shooting with a 4X5. The canyon goes into shadow quite early. So many of my photographs later turned out with an unacceptably bluish cast. Soon darkness started closing in and I retired to my campsite. In the night a group arrived at the site next to me and they kept me awake with the noise for a while.

I arrived at South lake 15 mins before sunrise ---it was quite cold. There were no photographers, but fishermen were already getting into position with their little motorboats. As soon as the sun rose, I discovered why there are no pictures of South lake at sunrise (in contrast to north lake). The mountains next to south lake do not get the first alpenglow because of other higher peaks around. But nevertheless I managed to get an interesting photograph which is dominantly blue.

Notice that the alpenglow is gone from the peaks. But I like the cold blue color of the photograph which gives the feeling of the cold alpine lake	Sierra granite and aspens. Most of the Sierra Nevada range is made up of pristine white granite which fractures cleanly. This granite is the reason why the Sierra Nevada has the best alpine rock climbing routes in the US.
South fork of Bishop creek. As the day wore on, it became windy and cloudy. Photographically the cloud cover was both a boon and a nuisance.	South fork fall colors.
This strand of aspen was starting lose the leaves.	I liked the contrast between yellows of the aspens and the green of the pines.

The rest of the day I spent around south fork photographing. The wind began to rise and clouds moved in. I was worried that my plans for next morning's sunrise will be useless if tomorrow becomes cloudy. Anyway, I decided to trust to luck and turned towards the campground. On the way, I saw a photographer parked at a turnout waiting for the sunset. Looking at the cloud cover, I had little hope that it will be an interesting sunset. I got back to the camp site and thought again: it was still light and I had nothing to do until bed time. So I decided to give the sunset a chance and drove back to a turnout from where there was a clear view. The wind was strong and I bundled up in my gloves and hat. The clouds were forming what is known as a "sierra wave" where high clouds form layers upon layers. Since these clouds form at a very high altitude, the last light of the sun reaches them only after passing through a very thick layer of the atmosphere and the alpenglow on them is always very strong.

The clouds started turning a brilliant red and orange and promised to be an amazing sunset. The light level difference between the clouds and the ground was more than 5-6 stops and I decided that even with a 3 stop graduated neutral density filter I had no chance of a good composition where both the ground and the clouds had tolerable exposure. But I was proved wrong almost immediately. The clouds covered a considerable portion of the sky and suddenly the sun illuminated the whole cloud layer. The reflected light from the clouds cast a strong red glow on all the surroundings and the contrast difference dropped to 3 stops. I had no interesting foreground except a desert sagebrush and I scrambled to get my tripod set right next to it. I made one exposure and my film was finished. By the time I loaded a new roll, the light was gone. I was lucky that the single exposure turned out correct. I have never seen such light except once at Zion, where again the light lasted only a couple of minutes.

The Sierra wave clouds at sunset. This sunset was remarkable enough to have shown up on other people's photographs too. See the versions from Guy Tal and Preston Birdwell. I realized from a later posting on photo.net that Guy was running a photography workshop in S. fork of Bishop creek that weekend.	The requirements of depth of field meant that I had to keep my shutter open for more than 1/4 second and the wind was high enough to shake the bush in front of me. This light lasted for less than 2 minutes. In situations like this, the speed of working with 35mm over 4X5 becomes important.

I woke up extra early and broke camp. I drove down all the way to Bishop and set up my tripod next to the Owens river at the spot I had scouted out before. The mosquitoes were heinous down here ---probably the temperatures were not cold enough yet. The sky was partly cloudy and I was not sure how things were going to turn out. The sunrise came and my fears proved to be unfounded. The light was good and lasted long enough. Soon though clouds covered the sun and the alpenglow disappeared.

Alpenglow at sunrise on Mt Tom and Owens river.	Pine cones at the ancient bristlecone pine forest.

As my last stop for this trip, I wanted to visit the ancient bristlecone pine forest at the White mountains. I drove south on 395 and took the turnoff at Big Pine. At the bristle cone pine forest, I took the trail which wanders through the Methuselah grove. This grove contains the oldest living tree (Methuselah) dated at 4,700+ years old. The hiking was hard at 10,000 ft, I was tired and the light was not good because it was already close to noon. There were some interesting trees with highly twisted forms, but I was hesitant to go off trail to find trees because of the notices posted. Bristlecone roots are close to the surface and excessive foot traffic can damage their roots. I made only one worthwhile exposure of cones lying around near a burnt log. I finished my hike and started the long drive home.