Starting Backpacking Season with a Bang

First Morning Dawn, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

I was determined this Summer to do a fair amount of backpacking to reach some of the most scenic portions of the High Sierra. Although trail accessibility was delayed somewhat by a healthy Winter, I was determined to get up to a few lakes before the snow on the surrounding peaks was entirely gone. For the first trip I decided to do a loop out of Devil's Postpile National Monument starting on July 10, from Agnew Meadows to Thousand Island Lake, Garnet Lake, Ediza Lake, and possibly cross-country over to Minaret Lake. Much of the trip would be in the vicinity of 10,000 feet in elevation, so I built an extra acclimation day into the schedule.

I could only get a wilderness permit to enter on the Pacific Crest Trail, so I'd start off with an eight mile day rising a couple of thousand feet. That portion of the trial was exposed, hot, my packing wasn't as Spartan as it should have been, and I was carrying five days of food, so it was a long haul. Obtaining the wilderness permit, taking the requirted bus shuttle into the park, and the hike itself led me to arrive jsut before the sun went down. There was wind on the lake, so I'd have to wait until morning for the best conditions and light. Fortunately the dawn conditions didn't disappoint, with the snow-clad Banner Peak reflecting in the still waters of the lake, an angular cloud providing additional light-catching capability and interest.

During the day I navigated cross-country up to a nearby ridge to catch a view over Sullivan Lake and down to the June Lakes Loop. I ruturned in time to catch alpenglow in the sky over a small iceberg.









Fortunately the skies that night were clear and no moon was visible, so the starts were incredible: bright and endless in number. The lake was calm, so the Milky Way reflected clearly in its waters. With a start like this, I couldn't wait to see what the next days would bring!

Fireworks Photography on the July 4th Weekend, 2010

Fireworks Over Lake Tahoe, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

Even landscape photographers take a day or two off from time to time, but that doesn't mean that we can't still take our cameras along! On Saturday I enjoyed fireworks and a BBQ at a friend's house overlooking Napa Valley, then headed up to Lake Tahoe the next night to enjoy fireworks there as well. Before the fireworks began, I spent some time exploring the prolific lupine growing along the shoreline.  Tahoe is a great place to catch fireworks, since there are many displays around the lake, and some towns avoid the competition from other displays by scheduling theirs for July 3, so you can actually pursue fireworks 2 nights in a row!

There used to be a great display at Squaw Valley resort, but in recent years that has been suspended due to increased fire danger in the recent drought years.

Twisted Trunks: The World's Oldest Living Things

Twisted Trunks: Light and Dark, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

As my kids and I were flying around the Eastern Sierra last week, it came up that they hadn't visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. It's an amazing place, and given the heat of the Owens Valley that week, an elevation of 10,000+ seemed like an even more attractive place to be.

In addition to being interesting for their exotic shapes, bristlecone pine trees are very long-lived. One nicknamed "Methuselah" was measured via a coring tool to be 4789 years old in 1957, so it should turn 4842 this year. In 1964 another specimen "Prometheus" was determined to be over 4000 years old, but the coring tool broke, so permission was given to cut it down. It turned out to be at least 4844 years old when it was killed.
We reached the Patriarch Grove after sunset, but we still had enough light to get some shots.


My daughter found this unique "wooden arch" etched into one of the tough old trunks.


The next morning we woke up in BLM's Grandview Campground at an elevation of roughly 9000 feet, and we found a scorpion outside the tent... right next to our shoes!

Dawn of Opportunity

Dawn of Opportunity, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

My memory gets a bit hazy on the details as I dragged myself through a sequence of relatively sleepless days, but eventually I woke up early enough to shoot a timelapse sequence of the sun rising over the Bodie Hills off towards the horizon.

The Bodie Hills are among 14 areas being considered for National Monument status. Many of them are rarely-used areas of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land, which enables you to go use them to your heart's content with minimal restriction. National Monument status could close them to maost use, except in developed campgrounds. You'll then be charged for the "improvements" (the sound of adjacent generators and drunken rednecks blasting country western music... sorry, just my recent experience in campgrounds during the past 2 weeks...), they'll probably charge National Monument/National Park $20-25 fees instead of the BLM's mroe typical $2-3 (when there's a fee at all), and the added attention will ensure that the lands get far more trampelled and whatever endangered wildlife allegedly needs "protection" there will be more challenged and endangered than ever before.

Don't worry though, there's a group of people in Washington who believe that their sole purpose in life is to obstruct anything that the President does (never mind that meeting in the middle is often the healthiest approach for citizens of the country), so eleven lawmakers have introduced a bill to block the administration's ability to create monuments. I'm clearly no knee-jerk supporter of converting these lands to monuments, but I have huge reservations about blocking the ability to create them when appropriate (and when that symbolic move won't actually cause worse problems). Isn't the two-party system supposed to result in rational, middle-of-the-road compromises which actually make sense? Why do we seem to have a recent rise in extreme polarization and rampant dysfunction? Is it simply a case of "because it works" (to make politicians bribe-rich), combined with a gradual erosion of adequate controls to punish people when there's excess?

We didn't venture into the Bodie Hills on this trip though. Instead we stuck along highway 395, heading up to Big Meadow near the town of Bridgeport to meet with Tom Lowe of www.Timescapes.org. We found a nice patch of iris growing in an irrigated pasture (replacing the ubiquitous sagebrush in the area), we explored some side roads where I shot some "sundog" rainbows in the sky, and we watched some large young hawks sitting in a nest on a power pole, while "Mama hawk" circled overhead, watching us.
We finished the day back in the iris field, with Tom filming my daughter walking in the warm light of the setting sun.

Foresta Lupine at Dusk

Foresta Lupine at Dusk, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

After photographing the lunar eclipse over Half Dome from Olmstead Point, I drove down to Yosemite Valley with the intention of staying there for the night and shooting "moonbows", lunar rainbows from the light of the full moon shining in the spray of Yosemite Valley's massive waterfalls. In spite of getting in line roughly 45 minutes before that morning's same-day campsite release at 8:30am, Yosemite holds back too few campsites to meet demend and I was unable to get a campsite that morning. Although my name was then placed on another list for reservation cancellations which would be released at 3, again I showed up and the supply dramatically failed to meet the demand (Yosemite removed a campground in 2001 following a flood, and failed to replace the lost sites or develop others, so sites are reserved months in advance and anyone who can't plan that far in advance is simply out of luck).

You've seen the weather that I encounter though... I often get lucky. Just as I was about to leave the unappeased crowd milliong about the campground reservation office, a woman walked up to me and offered to sell me her campsite for that night. She had bought it on Craigslist from soneone else who couldn't use it!

To make a long story short, my kids took me on a tour of the "Indian Caves", we returned and had the campsite set up by 6pm or so, had completed dinner by shortly after 7, but the sky was blue and clear, and I was too tired to go out for an alpenglow-only sunset. I went to the tent to take a nap, setting my alarm to get up late at night to go shoot moonbows. The alarm went off, I was too tired to get up, and I went back to sleep.

The next day packed up camp, took care of some adminstrative things via wi-fi in Curry Village, and headed up towards Foresta to see how the lupine were doing.

First stop was Cascade Creek, which is in shade this time of day, to capture long exposures. Next we explored the lupine fields at Foresta during a relatively colorless sunset.
Without no campsites available in Yosemite Valley, we aimed for the Eastern Sierra, where at least the Forest Service (under the Department of Agriculture, not the dysfunctional Department of the Interior)) provides a far better match between campsite demand and availability (and they allow siteless primitive camping as an option so site availability is not an issue).
Along the way the moon rose, so I paused to capture the moon rising behind trees on the ridges. I also paused to photograph frogs singing in my favorite pond near Tioga Pass.

Late, late, late at night, I had survived my campsite shortage and bureaucrat-imposed exile far from Yosemite Valley, and I had set up camp by 2:30am in the Eastern Sierra.

Aggressive Black Bears in the Sierra Nevada

Mama Bear #31, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

Typically black bears in California's Sierra Nevada are considered relatively harmless. Yosemite National park for years encouraged campers to chase them out of their campsites, as if they were large, furry stray dogs. The legality of bear hunting in adjacent national forests encouraged bears to teach each generation of cubs to be wary of humans.

The death of a bear by stoning at the hands of a boy scout troop in recent years encouraged Yosemite to retract their policy of having campers aggressively defend their campsites from bears. Expanding designation of wilderness areas has further decreased human aggression towards bears, resulting in the doubling of bear populations since the 1980s, and greater competition for food. A greater number of much bolder bears pursuing a limited food supply has resulted in an absurd numbers of vehicle and home break-ins by bears every year.

The management practices in Yosemite National Park alone have resulted in roughly 1000 vehicle break-ins by bears per year there since the late 1990s. Yosemite management focuses on the positive and notes that bear incidents are down, but as you check into campgrounds in Yosemite Valley you can still see that season's scorecard, with the numbers passing the 600 and 700 mark every Fall. Yosemite officials blame visitors, urging them to remove food from their vehicles, but even after decades of having this problem Yosemite has failed to place an adequate number of metal "bear boxes", and they've even where a few have been provided such as Curry Village, management has failed to adequately distribute them around the parking lots to encourage and facilitate their use, revealing the problem as being as much due to egregious mismanagement as anything else.

There have also been a number of attacks on humans by bears, including one last week in a campground in El Dorado County. The count was approximately a doxen from 1980-2003, but there were only 3 in the 10 years from 1983-1993, seven from 1993-1996, and with attacks in 2007, 2008 , 2009 and 2010, the rate remains troubling. Bear attacks also occur in other states such as New Mexico and Colorado, and the Sierra Club is now recommending that everyone who enters bear country carry pepper spray designed for the long distance shots needed to repel bears. Bear spray has been proven to be more effectve than guns. Protect yourself.

Lunar Eclipse Moonset from Olmsted Point

Lunar Eclipse Moonset by Olmsted Point

Using the free program The Photographer's Ephemeris to predict the path of the moon during the lunar eclipse as starting over Half Dome and ending a few degrees to the North on the horizon, I set my camera up to capture a timelapse sequence of the event. It will take a significant amount of time and effort to produce the video, but I did take a couple of shots around sunrise that I can share.

Following Sierra Clouds Over Tioga Pass

Clouds Over Tioga Pass Pond, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

After pursuing a large storm parked over the Eastern end of the Mono Basin for a while, I turned my attention towards getting up into Yosemite National Park to shoot the lunar eclipse late that night. Fortunately upon arriving in the Tioga Pass area I was treated to some nice broken clouds that would make shots taken long he way more distinctive.

My first stop was alongside Ellery Lake, where the light was fantastic but challenging, since cameras do not "see" in the same way that we do. Our eyes change exposure constantlya s we look around a scene, and there is no way that we can fully reflect both the "levelling" of exposures that our eyes perform and yet retain the full range of brightness and contrast that we also perceive in the overall view. In this case I simply chose to use Adobe Lightroom's Fill Light to make the shadows more accessible, and to decrease Brightness to prevent highlights from being blown out. A few quick shots at Ellery, and I was back to my quest to get over the pass.

Tioga Pass sits at an elevation of 9943 feet. There are some ponds in the area that can provide some nice reflections, but the wind was just energetic enough to encourage me to pass them by this time. A couple of miles down the road however there's a larger pond which sits lower and is protected by trees, so the reflection of the couds, Mt. Dana, and surrounding forest was excellent.
There was still snow in places among the trees and the water was high, so there were some unique shooting opportunities to be found. However, there were three cars stopped already and 8 or 9 photographers who seemed firmly entrenched in some of the best shooting positions, so I carried my camera and a couple of lenses so I could work around them. That turned out to be an advantage in some cases as I captured some unique perspectives that I might not have taken the time to try had my camera been attached to a tripod.
I continued my exploration past Tuolumne Meadows. Tenaya Lake was too rough from wind to be particularly photogenic, but I found a small snowmelt pond which had a nice reflection of a ridge bathed in warm evening light. There were few clouds to catch sunset light however, so I returned to Tuolumne Meadows where some coulds along the Sierra crest could catch the light.

Storm Clouds Over The Mono Basin

Storm Clouds Over Mono Craters, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

On this afternoon I was eager to head over Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, but as I drove north from Bishop in the Eastern Sierra and entered the Mon Basin, there were some nice storm clouds building over Mono Lake. That's too nice of a photo opportunity to pass up, so I turned on highwya 120 towards Mono Lake's South Tufa access.

When I arrived at the South Tufa turnoff, it was clear that the majority of the clouds were well East of the South Tufa site, so I took a right fork in the dirt road to head out to Navy Beach, where I could place sand tufa formations in the foreground of my shots.
After taking a variety of shots I resumed my course towards Yosemite, but upon reaching the highway 395/120 intersection just South of the town of Lee Vining, a rainbow appeared over Mono Lake. If I could reach the Old Marina access point just north of town, I could adjust my position to place the rainbow over the tufa offshore there, and zoom in to get a ncie composition and to make the rainbow major elements in the photo. The rainbow came and went for a few moments, and then was gone. Fortunately I had arrived just in time to capture a frame or two with the image that I had anticipated.

Eastern Sierra Light Rocks Again

Avocets at Sunset, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

I've been pursuing great light in the Eastern Sierra for many years. But it's only occasionally that you find an interesting wildlife subject willing to let you capture a few frames during that great light. So when I came across these American avocets feeding in brilliant orange sunset light, and they let me approach within a reasonable shooting distance, I had to shift focus from landscape to wildlife, or at least make the wildlife a key component in any landscape images I shot. So I focused on the avocets until the light faded signifcantly and their movements started to blur.

I was shooting with only one camera, so I didn't have much time or flexibility to switch between 200-400mm zoomed shots and much wider sunset landscape shots. So I chose to shoot the birds towards the sunset light, I did miss some incredible color on the clouds overhead and behind me.
Fortunately after the main light show subsided, there was still a lot of nice saturated blue light, and a subtle echo of sunset light re-emerged as well. I was able to productively shoot until nearly an hour after the "official" sunset time. All in all it was a great evening!

Sunset Trees Reflection

Sunset Trees Reflection II, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

Sometimes the simple, minimalist shots resonate with us. This scene was found on one of the reservoirs not far From Truckee, California. The particularly wet/humid Spring we've been having has been great for broken couds at sunset, while moderate temperatures have minimized wind.

Shooting the Big Sur Coast

Pre-Dawn Light on McWay Falls, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

If you're ever shooting on the Big Sur Coast, it helps to chat with the officers of the California Highway Patrol there. Aside fromresponding to accidents caused by the ocasional tourist who causes a truck to jackknife due to leaving her bicycle laying down on the road (true story), a lot of their time is spent interfacing with the public. They know every turnout and access point (and have participated in rescues people making their way to inaccessible spots), so they can help you spend your time there efficiently and safely

This waterfall, McWay Falls, is apparently one of two waterfalls dropping into the ocean in the continental United States, the other being Alamere Falls on Point Reyes.

This waterfall is accessed via the parking lot for Julia Pfeiffer State Park, but the park doesn't open until 8am, so I took this from a turnout up on Hwy 1, a few dozen yards higher than the standard path. The park also asks for a $10 fee for entry and parking!

There are some seriously quirkly rules and restrictions for accessing much of the coast, so I'll try to add notes as I add photos. For example, I blew off Pfeiffer Beach, a Forest Service access (due to all of those trees on the beach?), but unfortunately they've allowed a concessionaire to profit from Federal Recreation Passholders who bought the annual pass under the understanding that it would gain them entry to USDA Forest Service sites. They also close at sunset, not 30-40 minutes later when the sunset color is over, so it's virtually worthless to photographers who prefer to shoot in the best light(at least the ones who choose not to risk getting a ticket). I'll be sending the confused USDA bureaucrats some correspondence on that one... and I'll share the names with concerned photographers as well so your voices can be heard and your interests represented. Bureaucrats don't like risk, so I suspect they may show some flexibility if their users start raising a stink about counterproductive policies. Point Lobos State Park just up the road allows photographers to stay until 30 minutes after sunset, stilla bit tight but a far more reasonable compromise.

Topaz Lake Sunrise

Spinning Top, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (actually indoors for a couple of da.

Topaz Lake is one of those places that I rarely plan on being at when the light is best, but I often find myself there anyway as I make my way between Tahoe, Mono Lake, and Monitor and Ebbetts passes.

On this morning I was there in time to watch a nicely shaped Sierra Wave lenticular cloud gradually light up from orange to pink to white, and I stayed long enough to watch the warm morning sunlight slide down the foothills to the lake.


The only thing I regretted was not carrying my fishing rods down to the lake, as there were large trout feeding, taunting me just within casting distance. The lake straddles the California Nevada border, and although I was standing in Nevada facing California, I later determined that my California fishing license would have enabled me to take a few casts. Oh well, the fish will only be bigger when I return!

Fiery Mono Lake Sunrise

Fiery Mono Lake Sunrise, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (actually indoors for a couple of da.

I camped on a sagebrush-covered knoll overlooking Mono Lake with an expansive view so I could easily assess the prospects for a great sunrise early the next morning. As I had anticipated, the heavier storm clouds from the night before had broken up somewhat, leaving interesting clouds for the sun to light up but also leaving enough of an opening to the East to offer the promise of sending the orange sunrise light shooting in under them.



I moved quickly to get dressed and drive over to the South Tufa site with enough time left over to alk to the lake before the best light arrived. When I arrived, the parking lot was empty! The Sierra Nevada however already ahd a deep blood red tint on them, so there was no time to waste. I half walked, half jogged to the lake. It was tempting to start shooting immediately, but I watned to get a timelapse sequence going a couple of coves over, so I made my way over there as fast as I could.

Smoky Owens Valley Morning

Pre-Dawn Meander, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (actually indoors for a couple of da.

This morning started with smoke from a forest management fire the night before having settled with the coldest air down towards Crowley Lake, so I decided to stay a little higher at first so I could shoot towards the Sierra Nevada without much optical interference. I visited an area of nice cracked mud patterns.


Next I visited a pond where I could find a nice reflection shooting towards the Sierra Nevada as they caught the rising sun.

I was fortunate to also find a pair of American Avocets performing a courtship dance.
Once the sun was up I moved over to a large pond where, wind conditions permitting, I might zoom in on a reflection featuring the backlit smoke against a minimalist horizon.


Next I moved to a very small vernal pool that I had shot at a year earlier under more cloudy conditions, but this time the shot would ahve a totally differnt feel, as I'd catch the snowy Sierra contrasted against a blue sky.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

If I count those candles correctly, she's 22 years old!

If you attended the party, I'm starting to upload photos on my site www.JeffSullivan.BIZ, in a gallery here:
http://jeffsullivan.smugmug.com/Events/Barbaras-75th-Birthday-Party/12285030_Yp4nM#876905885_Gj6kB

Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower Peaks in Early May; Perseid Meteor Timelapse I Revised: Slower HD Video

Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower Peaks in Early May; Perseid Meteor Timelapse I Revised: Slower HD Video, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

May 2, 2010 - The Eta Aquarids meteor shower, caused by debris from Halley's Comet, is happening all this week. "Meteor Mark" at MeteorBlog has a nice writeup on it:

www.meteorblog.com

"Since April 19th the Eta Aquariids meteor shower has been active. The shower will start to really heat up around May 3rd. The Eta Aquariids usually treats us to more than a full week of meteor activity. The shower will begin to get stronger and stronger as we near the peak on May 6th"

"The Eta Aquariids usually treats us to more than a full week of meteor activity. The shower will begin to get stronger and stronger as we near the peak on May 6th. Beginning with about 20 to 30 meteors per hour on May 3rd the shower will dazzle us on May 6th with up to 80 meteors per hour. The shower’s name is the Eta Aquariids and will appear to radiate from the constellation Aquarius. Viewers will be able to see approximately one or two meteors per minute."

Point Southeast near the horizon in a dark location to capture this one, perferably before the moonrise. If your camera can handle ISO 6400, try a 30 second exposure at f/2.8, or if you can use ISO 1600 with an f/1.4 lens, or simply use an external trigger or timer to lengthen your exposure.

Good luck!

Creating Timelapse Sequences from Digital Photos

Zion National Park - Sunrise Timelapse, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

If you have a timer that can trigger shots at a regular intervals (AKA an intervalommeter function), you can have the free VirtualDub software convert your shots into a timelapse video.

Browse the forums at Timescapes.org for more details, but in the meantime browse my draft results in my Timelapse & HD Video set on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/sets/72157622147534372/

Lyrid Meteor Shower Peaks April 21/22

Meteor Over the Salt Flats, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

Here are a couple of resources to help you identify where to look in the sky:

http://www.amsmeteors.org/showers.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_16541_view-lyrid-meteor.html

Here are the upcoing meteor showers for the year:

2010 Meteor Showers (major ones):
www.theskyscrapers.org/meteors/

Meteor shower calendar for 2010 (including smaller ones):
www.astronomia.org/2010/calfugaces.en.html

Search this blog for "meteor" for related posts, and for a discussion on converting a sequence of shots into a timelapse video using the free VirtualDub software:
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2009/08/perseid-meteor-shower-iii-hd-video.html

Fun With a Helmet Cam

Extreme Skiing at Alpine Meadows, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

I was on the verge of buying a cheap uderwater camera when I ran across the GoPro helmet cam: a compact unit that can shoot in one of 5 video formats all the way up to 1080P HD, plus the capability to shoot 5 megapixel still images one at a time or at selectable intervals.

The GoPro is water resistant to 80 meters deep, so no problem if you want to shoot video or stills while snorkling, fishing, whitewater rafting, or skiing.

It produces videos in an MP4 format which not all programs support, but I found free software which enables conversion to more common formats, while adjustment of video quality:
http://www.highballblog.com/2010/02/how-to-edit-your-gopro-hd-videos-with_25.html

At the risk of stating the obvious, the GoPro portion of the video here is the portion clearly shot from pro freeskier Kevin Wherritt's point of view. (I should also add the caveat that the video uploaded here is a quick preview edit, and is of course severely downgraded in resolution and quality for ease of online use.)