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Yosemite 1999

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In August 1999 I took a solo Photo/backpacking trip to the Hoover Wilderness and Yosemite NP. I revisited a section of trail which I'd hiked in 1981, accessed from Twin Lakes just west of Bridgeport CA, a 5.5 hour drive from Las Vegas.

I calculated my pack weight after my trip. Fifty-five pounds of food, camping gear and camera gear. The camera gear included a large format 4x5 view camera, lenses, film, filmholders, meters, tripod (fifteen pounds for that stuff) and a 35mm snapshooter's camera. I should have carried even more film and food and stayed out longer. I thought about leaving the big camera home and taking just 35mm the next time, just for taking wildflower photos. Not.

I arrived at the trailhead (7100 ft elevation) at 1600 on a Friday. I took some Diamox and decadron for altitude illness (learn more about it by clicking here or here) and took off promptly for Barney Lake (8300 ft) arriving by ~1830 and setting up camp. I crossed streams and rivulets all throughout the trip. Wildflowers screamed "hey, dude!" to me all the way. Mosquitoes punctuated the atmosphere regularly but thinly, thanks to a snowfall the previous night--cold kills.

Saturday, the trail took me up past a gorgeous little lake with clear blue water instead of the dark green lakes that abound in the high country, then to Mule Pass (10,400') and down to Slide Canyon (9,600). Above, a photo of me at Mule Pass, the Sawtooth Ridge behind me on my left. Taken with a Yashica T4 Super, tripod, Kodak Tmax400 CN, tweaked in a photo editor. I headed up Slide Canyon to Burro Pass. On the way, I encountered a 3 foot high rock in the middle of a small stream. I decided that I'd hop up onto the rock and move on--a bad decision as I had somehow forgotten about the 55 lb pack. A moment later the right side of my face made contact with the slippery rock dressing the streambottom. Soaked to the skin, I thought immediately of getting up to keep the camera in my pack from getting wet as well as to keep from drowning. Very little got wet. My pager/watch drowned. I camped soon to prevent hypothermia from setting in. I got warm and saw that the sun would set behind a bank of clouds so I didn't set up my camera with a view toward shooting the sawtooth ridge above me. Well, for just 20 seconds, the sun's last red rays shone through the clouds and hit the ridge--you had to be there to feel what I felt. Click here to see what I saw! I took some Ibuprofen (another great drug) and slept the sleep of babies on a bed of soft high mountain meadow grass.

The next day I broke camp, hiked to Burro Pass (10,700') and looked into Matterhorn Canyon, turned around and hiked down Slide Canyon 400 ft to a gorgeous shelf with three tiny lakes (tarns) where I had camped before in 1981. This time I set up the camera to shoot the Sawtooth Ridge and waited for the light. See the last photo. It rocks.

Monday took me back to Mule Pass down to Crown lake (9,600') and up to Snow Lake (10,200') where at 5 p.m. a tremendous hailstorm with thunder/lightning landed for an hour with strikes within a thousand feet. Having a metal camera worries me at times. Clear skies followed immediately with an opportunity for sunset photographs. Another storm, not quite so close, passed during the night and the morning sun came out sharp and crisp.

Tuesday I walked six miles to the car. Small snowballs fell as I walked.

I drove to Bodie, CA , now an interesting ghost town at 8400 ft. Miners dug out more than $100 million worth of gold in the 19th century. I shot my last sheet of film there (B/W of the Methodist Church) and had no film for the return trip when I saw some outstanding light and landscape near Sagehen Summit (CA St Rt 120) east of Mono Lake.

Š1999 Jeffrey Wong