Pictures from my annual birthday camping trip

[K_Dub]

Some of you may remember me posting some shots last year from a backpacking trip I'd taken. Well, this year I carried on the seven year old tradition with another trip to the high sierra. I shot hundreds of photos, but of course the first ones I edit and share are of the SVX.

This location is one of my favorites. Last year I took a great series with landscape in the background, but this year I was running a couple of hours late and the sun had already left the area.



Here I am leaving Yosemite on the east side of Tioga Pass.



Tuolumne Meadows where I parked for a hike up to Cathedral Peak.



I was having a lot of fun hanging my camera out the window at speed to get "action shots" without all the hassle of doing it right. Here I was approaching Glacier Point.



This was the tunnel that runs on the south wall of Yosemite Valley (I took a lot of these).



Lastly, a bit of luck. I was setting up this shot, tripod on the bumper, using my headlamp to frame the shot, setting up the long exposure, etc. I clicked it to basically test the setup, when I realized that I was blocking the moonlight that I'd planned to have illuminate the emblem. Flustered, I turned on my headlamp and "flashed" it by keeping it covered by my hand. It came out better than I'd expected, considering my mess-up, so I didn't bother with a second take. There's a popular saying that goes "there are no accidents in film, only Buddhist miracles."

[K_Dub]

This may not be SVX related, but I'm sorting through my pics and I think this is one of the best photos I've ever taken.



Bridal Veil Falls at sunset.

[icingdeath88]

Wow. That is beautiful. I forgot what mountains look like.

[tiv0]

These are some really good shots, thanks for sharing.

[K_Dub]

Originally Posted by icingdeath88

Wow. That is beautiful. I forgot what mountains look like.

I make sure that I go remind myself from time to time.

I thought I'd seen mountains before. I'd seen big trees, granite domes, grassy meadows, etc. Nothing I'd ever seen was anything like Yosemite. I was planning to do a three day solo back-pack up to the same lake I'd visited last year, but on my first night out my stove broke and decompressed all of my Butane out in about 15 seconds. Without that, and no guarantee that I'd have enough dry wood for a cooking fire every night, I tucked tail and headed to Yosemite where I was sure to find the amenities that I now required. I got up there late on Sunday, and every site in the park was booked months ago. So I had to drive back to town and stay in a motel for the night. The next day I attacked the valley floor (and it's crowds) with my camera and then got up to Tioga pass by about 2pm. Slapped on my snowshoes and hit up Cathedral Peak about 3.5 miles from the road. Got back to my car 'round 7:30 and still had another hour of amazing light to photograph from the car (it being solstice) before finding a developed campground above Mono Lake on the desert side of the pass.

Now I'm back, my car is filthy, and I'm flying to Houston for a wedding tomorrow. Talk about hitting all the extremes in a week.

Here's another car pic for reading my little story. Royal Arches and North Dome .

[bwb3]

Can't wait for next year's calendar. Great shots.
Gene

[RojoRocket]

Happy B'Day Kit! Great pics!

Glenn

[lhopp77]

Yep!! Great pics!!!! Yosemite is one of my favorite places. I love the drive from the east side over through the park. Yosemite is on the top 10 places to see in the US. Along with--

Grand Canyon
Yellowstone
Niagara Falls
Redwood National Park
Mt Hood, OR
Carlsbad Caverns, NM
Arches National Park, UT
Columbia River Gorge, OR
Death Valley

Lee

PS--if you could sink LA and SF and get rid of the idiots officed in Sacremento--CA would be a great place.

[K_Dub]

Originally Posted by lhopp77

Yep!! Great pics!!!! Yosemite is one of my favorite places. I love the drive from the east side over through the park. Yosemite is on the top 10 places to see in the US. Along with--

Grand Canyon
Yellowstone
Niagara Falls
Redwood National Park
Mt Hood, OR
Carlsbad Caverns, NM
Arches National Park, UT
Columbia River Gorge, OR
Death Valley

Lee

PS--if you could sink LA and SF and get rid of the idiots officed in Sacremento--CA would be a great place.

I've seen them all, except Niagara (I've got to get out east someday), and I've camped within 50miles of each. I have mixed feelings about the National Parks Service. I recently watched the Ken Burns series "America's Best Idea" and it renewed my interest in seeing Yosemite for myself. The past few years I've avoided the Parks quite intentionally. I realize that without them the areas would all be developed beyond recognition, and that would be a loss for all of humanity, but when I go to the wilderness I like it wild. The whole time I was there I tried to imagine what it was like for John Muir to travel there before all the roads, crowds and tour busses. It was no utopia at that time either, because Muir was there to guide flocks of sheep to grazing land in the meadows, destroying the ecosystem. The Wilderness Areas maintained by the Dept. of Agriculture are close to my ideal, where motorized vehicles and pack animals are not allowed, and that's where I find the greatest connection to our nation. The Ansel Adams wilderness was where I'd intended to go originally, and I grew up a stones throw away from the Indian Peaks wilderness in Colorado (bordering Rocky Mtn National Park). I just can't get over paying $20 to go to a "nature themed amusement park" where you spend half the day standing in line. It wasn't until I got well off the road that I found what I was looking for; solitude, but it was unsettling to realize that I was not allowed to sleep there and that the rules of civilization stretch further into the wilderness in the parks than anywhere else.

I'm glad the National Parks are here. I have no idea how it could be better administered than it is currently (they do need income from tourists so that's unavoidable). I just prefer my trips to the wild places to be a little wilder.

As for California, look at the Parks as a microcosm of this state as a whole. Take the greatest place on the planet, then ruin it in the process of "improving it". I suppose just leaving something alone wouldn't be progress, but as our state progresses into a black whole hopefully people will realize that progress isn't always beneficial.

Here's a view of upper Yosemite from the road I'm bemoaning.



Glad everyone's enjoying my pics and tolerating my political diatribe.

[K_Dub]

Just to make sure that this remains "General SVX Babble" here's another shot of my car on Tioga Pass.

[kwren]

how do we put a graphic on a post without doing it as an attachment
Does "copy-paste" do it?

Thanks,
Keith

[K_Dub]

Originally Posted by kwren

how do we put a graphic on a post without doing it as an attachment
Does "copy-paste" do it?

Thanks,
Keith

These are "hot-linked". I've uploaded them to my Picasa account (same as Photobucket, SimplePic, etc.) so the files are hosted by Google's server in my case. Then I right-click on the image and select "copy image location" and paste that URL into the "picture embed" button in the post window here on the network. You can also keep clicking on a picture until it's in its own window with no buttons or graphics surrounding it and copy the URL from the top of the browser. The picture embed button is the button that looks like my last post, complete with the moon, 6th from the right on the posting page.

Clear as mud? I don't know how better to describe it.