High Sierra Topix

A long long time ago - late June 1989, heading up to Half Dome in the evening for a (then legal) summit night


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Another Yosemite view from the archives

Above the Tioga Road at Olmsted Point, looking at Tenaya Lake


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A lost forest - Silver Divide from Keyser Pass Road to Florence Lake, June 1989


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Late evening at Glacier Point, July 1989


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The first day I laid eyes on the Sierra Nevada, late June of 1988, just after coming in from Nevada via the (unpaved) Benton Crossing Road, taking a break at Crowley Lake. Back then, I had no idea what I was looking at, but I liked it A few days later I began my first JMT hike.


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Fish,
Thanks for the nice images and a bit of your personal Sierra history. The first sight of the Sierra is something we will never forget.

After 42 years of backpacking the Sierra, I still feel awestruck when I drive up the Owens Valley…just like the first time.

Living in the Midwest all those years I've been coming to the Sierra, I have always arrived via US6 from Nevada, and every single time it was a view that rewarded me for 2000 miles of driving. The dramatic appearance of that tall snow capped range when you drop in over the pass from Nevada is something I don't want to miss. The first time in 1988, I stopped to take that image - not the same as the Crowley Lake "take it all in" view, but definitely the moment the heart rate went up: Boundary Peak dominates this view, but far in the back to the right above the Benton area, there was the Sierra for the first time ever,


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Then I was on the (still unpaved) Benton Crossing Road and got a better look, just before dropping down to Crowley Lake


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The old Toyota served me well for many years, returning over and over again to this place. That same day we went to Whitney Portal, parked at the terminus of the JMT, and went to Lone Pine to catch the Greyhound to Lee Vining at 10pm. Waiting in the Lone Pine park at the north end of town I snapped this slightly fuzzy shot of Lone Pine as it was in 1988. Didn't somebody recently crash a semi into the Mt. Whitney Hotel?


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About 36 hours later I would be looking at this for the first time


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Yeah 2 yrs ago a semi did crash into it... Look at the price of gas $1.14! Currently in L.P. it's $4.89
Thanks for all the pictures. My first Sierra view was a flight up the Owens Valley from L.A. to Bishop in 1970-72. Cruising at about 8,000' the wall of jagged granite was something to behold for a teenager. Probably steered me into my geography major at CSUN. Took a long weekend "Geography of the Owens Valley" class as a result for added college credits. The two adults I was with from the flight school rented a car in Bishop and we fished PVR and North Lake. I was hooked to say the least. Spent the night in a hotel and watched a girls softball game in the park. Wild times!? When I got my drivers license I'd spend every other w/e somewhere up the Owens through high school usually up the Bishop Cyn.
"The Dude says ABIDE"

ironmike writes:

After 42 years of backpacking the Sierra, I still feel awestruck when I drive up the Owens Valley…just like the first time.

That's even better than the first time, indelible memory Mike. I feel the same in the Owens, I want to live there so bad it hurts. In the 80's I fell out of escrow on a piece of land in Aspendell which was priced at under $30,000! We were almost there!
Austex, your story and mine are similar too. My second time in the Sierra was as a student in a geology field studies course in '79. The Sierra experience turned me onto geology/geography for the rest of my life.