Mount Humphreys from Granite Park
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:11 pm
A few days after I came back from my Mineral King backpack, one of my brothers and I headed over Sonora Pass then south on US395 to Pine Creek. We did a 5-day backpack up its headwaters area of Granite Park. My sixth backpacking trip since late May and a destination I've visited a couple times before. The above image is a crude flatbed scan from a 4x5 Provia 100F transparency.
The peak in the distance at center is Mount Humphreys. Magenta hued Lemmon's paintbrush one sees in this turfy foreground were peaking in many areas. Note the wavy reflection of the fluted peak was the result of a stream coming into the pond just to the right of the frame and not a breeze. Generally wildflowers were peaking above 11k and usual turfy areas were nicely green due to considerable seepage still coming down from permanent snow fields and north facing talus areas. Air was nicely clear as an uncommon cold front had just cleared out dirty air to the west over the Central Valley and to the east over the Great Basin. So I did capture some nice orange sunrise light on impressively shaped peaks I'd hoped to. However hoped for monsoon flow clouds didn't arrive till we hiked out thus I had to make do with photographing just sunny clear conditions. This summer has thus far been unusually sunny with few thunderstorms. I consider Granite Park to be one of the top ten aesthetic crest basins in the Sierra just like the East Fork of Bear Creek on the west side of this same crest area.
Since returning home Monday afternoon, I'd been slow to deal with the messy piles of gear all over my residence as well as uncertain about what my next challenge would be. However this morning sprang into action working on my gear and radically pared about 20 pounds off my usual 70 pounds plus of gear in order to try and return the 15 miles and 4300 vertical feet to the East Fork of Bear Creek I just mentioned above. In 2004 three of us did a terrific backpack there, but I failed to adequately capture three most impressive subjects that has gnawed at me ever since. So sometime tomorrow I'm set to hit the road in order to make up for those sins. Forecast midweek is for possible afternoon thunderstorms which might make my tentless, bivyless minimalist adventure interesting. ...David