High Sierra Topix

Yeah have a week long permit from Onion V up and over the KP. Know many have plans the following week for the forum meetup into the Kern Basin though some other wimps like this person may have decided on easier fare. Will be in the Kearsarge and Rae basins but not at places people normally stay at. In other words at usual no-name spots for photographic logistical reasons. Will not be carrying my view camera but rather A6000 so am going to be more mobile. Anyone m/f me an email or PM.

A couple of images just processed this evening taken during the holiday weekend. Both are multi row and column Photoshop CS6 Photomerge stitches from my 24mp A6000 using a robotic head for panel positioning. Both are downsized 3x then saving used a lossy jpg compression so the images won't be too slow to load on the web. Some others I recently built are over 20,000 pixels wide. Will be taking it up over Kearsarge instead of my 4x5 that will keep my carrying weight much lower than usual, in the upper 50 pound range.

This first taken on the Fourth of July is Convict Creek showing the Paleozoic geology in the canyon with rockfringe in the foreground.



And this was Saturday July 5 at Heart Lake up in the Little Lakes Valley. See the 5 people hiking the trail along the shore? Have never seen so many people hiking up there that day.

SSSdave wrote:Yeah have a week long permit from Onion V up and over the KP. Know many have plans the following week for the forum meetup into the Kern Basin though some other wimps like this person may have decided on easier fare. Will be in the Kearsarge and Rae basins but not at places people normally stay at. In other words at usual no-name spots for photographic logistical reasons. Will not be carrying my view camera but rather A6000 so am going to be more mobile. Anyone m/f me an email or PM.

Easier, but not easy - sounds good. I'm not able to head out again until July 18, but I'll also be heading in for an easier, but not easy destination - Bear Ridge to Sallie Keys Lake and around that area. I recall you said this might be a good time of year for that area, but I guess it's hard to say if that holds true with how dry it is this year.

Hi Kathy,

Should still be pretty decent though may appear more like mid August with some wildflower species gone to seed and the general dryness you have already seen in other areas. The South Fork of Bear Creek headwaters basin during normal to wet years has some superb wildflower areas and wet green meadows that will only be modest this year. In any case Bear Creek is a fine choice for a trip in a droughty summer because it is one of the most pleasant streams to hike beside in the High Sierra and its surrounding canyon has numbers of small tributary streams from higher areas that will flow all summer.

Latest Hanford NWS forecast discussion below is looking promising for interesting photography weather next week as my trip starts. Last year on our week long trip over Sawtooth Pass we suffered through continual boring sunny often breezy weather so I'm smiling now.

THE OPERATIONAL MODELS IN GOOD AGREEMENT AND SHIFT THE UPPER
LEVEL RIDGE OVER THE FOUR CORNERS REGION EARLY NEXT WEEK AND
FORECAST WINDS ALOFT TO BECOME SOUTHEASTERLY AGAIN.
THIS COULD BRING ANOTHER SURGE OF MONSOON MOISTURE INTO
CALIFORNIA EARLY NEXT WEEK. THUS A THREAT OF THUNDERSTORMS EACH
AFTERNOON WILL BE PROBABLE EACH DAY STARTING MONDAY MAINLY OVER
THE MOUNTAINS AND DESERT.

Grrr...the potential for thunderstorms in this drought year is not a threat, but a hope!! The NWS doesn't seem to get it.