Leon Turnbull Photography

We arrived at Tamarack Lake just as the first light was hitting Ralston Peak. The lake was smooth as glass, providing a beautiful reflection. There was still a bit of snow on the peak from the latest storm, and there were even a few nice clouds hanging over the peak, which is a lot more than I was expecting. It was a glorious morning.

At this time of year, the sun is rising a bit more from the south east, so it actually rose a bit behind Ralston Peak, and we never did get the bright red colors on the peak. I should have known this of course beforehand, but I didn’t think it would be a big issue so I didn’t check it. It wasn’t really, we still had a beautiful sunrise.

There was even a backpacker at the lake, whom I think Rob and I woke up with our early morning arrival. But really, he should have been up anyway. Why would you backpack to such a beautiful location, and not get up to see the glorious sunrise? I’m just kidding. Who in their right mind would want to get up so early? Unless he was a crazy photographer or something. Anyway, I think we did wake him up a bit earlier than he wanted. Oh well.

After sunrise, we had some time so we continued on to Ralston Lake to check it out. It is only a short hike, but there is no well established trail to that lake, so it is difficult to find your way to it. Thank the Lord for GPS, otherwise we would have ended up in Nevada. ha ha. Ralston Lake is a lot smaller than Tamarack, but all the lakes up here are so beautiful in their own way.

After enjoying Ralston Lake, we boogied our way back to the trail head and our vehicles. It seemed to take much longer hiking back, though in reality it took the same amount of time. I had to get on to South Lake Tahoe to meet my family for lunch, as we were celebrating my brother-in-law’s birthday there. I arrived there in plenty of time. We had a late lunch at the Beacon Restaurant (pretty good), and then we drove on back home in time for the kids to go trick or treating.

Oh yeah, one more thing. If you look at this photo closely, you can see a sliver of white in the center of the image, which looks like a waterfall coming down off Ralston Peak. It is not a waterfall. We couldn’t really determine if it was snow or white rock, though we eventually concluded it must be rock. But according to Rob the geologist, it is actually a petrified waterfall, the only such waterfall in existence. It is precisely 2.4713 billion years old, and was previously unknown to mankind until just very recently when it has been revealed due to global warming. Just kidding! (does anyone out there really read this stuff I write?)

This morning (Saturday), my friend Rob and I went on another very early morning hike. Our goal was to get to Tamarack Lake in the Desolation Wilderness for sunrise. We succeeded in that effort, and that photo will follow shortly, but this is not Tamarack Lake here. This is the Echo Lakes. The hike to Tamarack Lake is about 4.5 miles one way and we started hiking at 5:45AM in the dark. That meant I was up at 4AM (and Rob even earlier, since he had to drive from the Auburn area). It is just about exactly a 1.5 hour hike, and this time, I timed it pretty well for a change, as we arrived at Tamarack Lake right at sunrise. Nonetheless, a bit earlier would have been even a bit better. The hike follows along Lower and Upper Echo Lakes for the first 3 miles or so, then climbs up to Tamarack Lake. At the top of the hill we looked back and saw this amazing glow over the Echo Lakes as the sun was getting herself ready to rise. But the color faded so fast, and we couldn’t get our cameras out in time. If we had been there 5 minutes earlier, the colors would have been much nicer than what you see in this photo. Still, I think I got a pretty decent shot here before the colors faded completely. From here, we continued on another mile to Tamarack Lake, and the clouds you see here became colorful a second time, this time with bright pink and golden colors. We could have taken more shots of that, but instead hurried on to Tamarack Lake to get there for sunrise. We arrived just in time. Stay tuned.

After walking around Bodie, we found Neal and Luke finally. They came up to Bodie later and we did not see them until the end. Neal wanted to go to Virginia Lakes. I’m not sure why. I knew it would not be good there. But he heard from somewhere that the colors were better up there. So that is where we went, and when we got there, there was nothing at all to photograph. Strike one. I suggested we drive down Dunderberg Meadow road. Nothing there. Strike two. Now it was starting to get late, and we had nowhere to photograph. We should have probably gone to Mono Lake, but I followed them to Lundy Lake instead. There was some nice color along there. Neal and Luke were a bit picky though. My wife kept saying, why don’t you stop there. It’s nice here, stop now. Hey, I’m just following the other guys. At the end of Lundy Lake, Neal and Luke didn’t like what was there, so they drove back down the road. I walked down to the lake though, looking for something here. And I found a nice enough spot at the end of the lake. As I walked there though, I noticed things getting a bit muddy. I stood at the end of the lake to photograph, and I started sinking deep into the mud. It was like quicksand! My boots were totally soaked in mud by the time I finished making this photograph. Oh well, it was a small price to pay.

Last Saturday was a pretty busy day for us. Firstly, I got up to do yard work, then we took the kids to the pumpkin patch at Zittel Farms, which we do every year. The Zittels are friends of ours, they used to go to the same church as us in Orangevale, and they have a nice place where we can get pics of the kids with pumpkins, and they can go on a hay ride, and pony rides (which of course, Nekoda loves). This year our kids are dressing up as a Clone Trooper (Jadon), and Little Bo Peep (Nekoda), a sheep (Tara), a lady bug (Kaya), and nothing (Leon).

After the pumpkin patch, we drove out to Yolo Wildlife Area in Davis, a place where we can drive around and see plenty of birds and such. We saw quite a few birds, including a peregrine falcon, and egrets, and many other small birds as well. The birds seemed quite skitterish out there, especially the egrets. I may post some shots a bit later.

Anyway, we stayed out there for the sunset, and this was the result. It was a rather pretty sunset with some nice pink clouds. I admit I was hoping for the wild, red colors I had in SF a week earlier. I must be spoiled, because we were rather fortunate to have any nice clouds at all.

After sunset, we went to dinner back in Davis, then drove home, put the kids to bed, and watched the Vancouver Canucks win their hockey game against Toronto. It was a great day.

Back to our Lee Vining trip a couple weeks ago. We spent most of the afternoon on Saturday in Bodie ghost town along with tons of other people. It was probably one of the busiest days there of the year. It is definitely an incredibly interesting ghost town, and there are tons of things to see and photograph there. But personally, I have a very hard time photographing Bodie. Mostly, I think because it is not where my main interests lie, photographically speaking. I prefer natural (not man-made) landscapes. Plus, the light was very harsh, and there were too many other people around. So for these reasons, I find Bodie very challenging to photograph. I do want to do better here though, and return when conditions are more favourable.

The first place we went is the cemetary, because we missed it when we were here last time. The cemetary is out of the way from the main section of Bodie, and not as many people venture out to it. I found this angel rather interesting. It is on the grave of a 3 year old girl that was killed accidentally from a miner’s ax.