Storm In The Sierras

Storm In The Sierras - Part One

In the fall of 2023 I became aware of a composition I wanted to capture in the Eastern Sierras. The problem was not knowing exactly were it was. I had seen a picture of it and knew it was in the Bishop area due to the particular mountains in the scene. I was pretty sure it was taken from Table Lands north of Bishop. I started searching, driving around, walking to the edge of Table Lands with no luck. I was able to rule out a number of locations. Then I resorted to Google Earth and, finally after much exploring, figured out what I thought was at least the approximate location. I had found a dirt road and knew I could continue my quest on that road and get fairly close to where I thought I should be. I began planning a trip to the Bishop area but what I needed for success was a good storm to bring the snow down the eastern faces of the Sierra mountains. Finally, a good storm was predicted for early March 2024.

The predictions were that the storm would come in late Friday and be gone by Sunday morning. I contacted my good photography buddy in Denver and we met up in Sacramento and headed to the Sierras on Thursday before the storm was to hit. But the storm came in early and 75 mile an hour winds were predicted for the passes over the Sierras for Thursday afternoon. Those were winds to avoid so we headed south to Bakersfield and went around the southern end of the Sierras and then north on highway 395 to Bishop.

What I was hoping for was to be on the edge of the storm and to be able to photograph the storm conditions. I got exactly what I had hoped for as can be seen in these images. The image above is the composition I had been obsessing on. It was captured on the third, and last, day of this trip.

The first morning in Bishop I woke up and saw the sky was fairly clear. We jumped in the car to scout the conditions to the west, the Eastern Sierras along highway 168. When you see light like that shown above, first thing in the morning, and you are out photographing, you might find your heart skipping beat. It was, indeed, a portent of some gorgeous scenery to be found.

This was taken that same morning from Pleasant Valley. As it turned out this historic storm had winds that were clocked at 190 miles an hour over the peaks. All of the roads, 395 just north of Bishop, highways 50, 80, 88, 89 were closed, By the time we headed home on Monday when the storm was predicted to be over, all of the roads were still closed. It was quite a storm, but Bishop was protected from it with fairly decent weather. However, driving 7 miles to the west on 168 placed us in a blizzard, literally. It was rather shocking how quickly we went from clear sky to it beginning to snow to white out conditions.

Smoky Mountain National Park In The Fall

There are many places to find fall color and one very special such place is the Smoky Mountains National Park. It is the most visited national park and I would guess the bulk of the visitors come during fall color. When you are driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and the traffic comes to a stop you can be sure there is an excellent viewing location just ahead of you. The waterfall in this picture is Looking Glass Falls and it is viewable from the road, but absolutely worth getting out of the car to really experience it. It is not often that you find a good waterfall with fall colors surrounding it like this. In another part of the park is an area called Tremont. It is a gold mine of scenes like the one above with cascading creeks deep in the forest. A wonderful place to spend contemplative time, alone with nature. Sunrises are special in the Blue Ridge Mountains with the lingering ground mist, gorgeous skies and the awakening of the forest beauty. One of the things I love about sunris

Red Foxes

I had never experienced anything quite like photographing red foxes. I was with them nearly all day, for three days in a row. I was so taken by them, especially the way they related to each other. Above is the dog fox, the adult male of the group, with one of his offsrping, a female kit fox. In this family group there were two vixen, one was the grandmother, the other the mother of three kits. The adult females attended the den all day with one or the other going off to hunt, returning with food for the kits. Missing most of the day was the dog fox and when he would return the kits all gravitated to him. All of the kits seemed to adore the dog fox but the moments between him and his daughter were especially touching. What a gorgeous, photogenic animal he is. When I returned a year later he was still there and there was a whole new brood of kits. I am hoping to return again this year having missed last year due to a bout with covid. I hope this particular fox is still there

Coyotes Are Territorial

Driving on a back road I saw this coyote running full speed parallel to the road and in the same direction I was driving. I had my camera in my lap and got a couple of quick shots of him. I noticed him looking back a couple of times and there some distance behind him was the reason for his apparent panic This coyote was coming like gangbusters. It was a marvelous animal, bigger than the other, and looked to be a much more powerful animal, running, leaping and digging in, giving it all he had in what appeared to be a chase after the first coyote. As they went up over the hill and out of sight, we had to drive farther up the road to the other side of the hill to a place we could park and get out of the car. As we got out of the car, here came the first coyote, the one who was being pursued, around the bend, still glancing back, panting, but no longer running for his life. I am guessing that this coyote was in the other coyote's territory and was being run out. Once he was ov

Notes To My Mother

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