Since returning from our Sierra trip, I’ve been editing photos, and have some new ones up on the website.  In true banzai* fashion, a friend and I made a run up to the eastern Sierra over the weekend.  We left after work on Thursday, and arrived in the Alabama Hills outside of Lone Pine about 11pm.  I shot some star trails of the now famous Mobius Arch (also called Galen’s Arch, after Galen Rowell).  After sunrise, we headed north, and shot up Bishop Creek to hunt for some fall colors.  In my last post, I summed up the difficulty we had finding fall color.  That night, we headed north and shot the Minarets at sunset.  The next morning, we visited Mono Lake at dawn.  At the South Tufa parking lot, I counted 28 cars when we arrived, one hour before sunrise.  Figuring on a minimum of 2 photographers/car, I bailed and went to the Navy Beach parking lot; we were the only ones there.  In my opinion, Navy Beach has tufas that are waaayyy cooler than the “regular” ones at South Tufa.  After sunrise, we went to Lundy Canyon, in hopes of finding fall colors there, then to Tuolumne Meadows for a hike to Cathedral Lakes.  Sunset at Olmsted Point, then to the Whoa Nellie Deli for dinner.  The next morning, we went for a hike in Devil’s Postpile, then shot home.

I’ll share some of the images from this trip in the next few posts.  However if you can’t wait, I’ve updated my Sierra Nevada page with new images, as well as Mono Lake.  I’ve added a new page for Devil’s Postpile National Monument as well.

Desert Bouquet, Autumn, Alabama Hills, California, October 2009

*See Phil Colla’s definition of a banzai photographer.