The Sierra Nevada Mountains, Opus III

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

-John Muir

 I visited and set up three times on three separate days in order to photograph this aspen grove. Every time, I was thwarted capturing the scene without having the aspens quake due to windy conditions. On the third day I hunkered down for over two hours attempting to get just one photo without them constantly moving.

After the second hour, just standing there staring at the trees, the winds began to diminish, although not completely stop. Finally, it degraded to mild breezes, I took several photos and was happy to at least salvage one acceptable frame. Oh well, this gives me an excuse to revisit this area again - in a heartbeat - and try to bag these aspens sans movement.

 
 Middle Fork, Bishop Creek. On the way up to Lake Sabrina, and a little ways past the aspens featured in the previous photograph.

 South Lake has got to be one of the more picturesque lakes in the eastern Sierra Nevada that is easily accessible by car. This is the area where I stumbled upon the miniature grove of natural bonsai trees growing tenaciously in the cracks of a granite escarpment overlooking the lake, allowing the opportunity to photograph Sierra Bonsai in black and white.

Shot near the ski slopes of Mammoth Mountain. An early October snowfall dusted the Sierras with several inches of snow. Trekking around off of a ski slope maintenance road looking for camera fodder, I spied this scene rendered in miniature. Not more than four inches in height, when I saw it, it reminded me of a robust, Christmas tree-like pine, growing along side a huge boulder tucked away in some remote and desolate Sierra Nevada wilderness area.

That wraps up The Sierra Mountains. Next time we'll take a look-see and a gander at some of the creations Soleil Flowers has produced.