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.  

More images in my next post.

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