Month: September 2014

Halfway through our trip I began to wonder if I wasn’t on a geology trip rather than a birding trip. Four days into our trip all I’d managed to see was a couple of California Gulls, and even then only at a distance. And here we were on a morning trip to see The Devil’s Postpile National Monument, which required dropping down thousand of feet on a single lane road very close to a cliff, too close for Leslie. I would have loved to get some shots of the surrounding mountains, but I wasn’t going to stop and meet another car coming up the hill (and as it turned out when I did manage to stop and get some shots on the way back up the hill, they were pretty pitiful since they flattened the drop to the bottom of the cliff).

Once at the parking lot, we headed out to the main attraction. I should have known then that I’d need my birding lens, but, no, I decided to carry my 17-50mm and 70-200mm lenses because those were what I would need for scenic shots. One thing you can always count on in photography is that the lens you really want is back in the car or at home. On our way to The Devil’s Postpile we were assaulted by this Red-Breasted Nuthatch that simply wouldn’t be ignored, so what was I to do but shoot it with the 70-200 mm lens, which means I ended up cropping most of the shot out. It probably didn’t help that I was using multiple focal points, as I almost always do in scenic photographs but never in bird shots; so the poor camera didn’t know what to focus on.

Still, I was happy with the shot because I rarely see Red-breasted Nuthatches, or any other nuthatches, for that matter. I was even happier when this Mountain Chickadee showed up in the same spot because I’d never seen one.

I was definitely tempted to hang around and try to get a better shot of the Chickadee, but the trail was suddenly full of tourists, and we needed to get going to see Bristlecone Pines after we saw the Devil’s Postpile.

It was definitely worth the short walk to view the Desert Postpile. Heck, it would have been worth the walk just to see the geometrically shaped stones at the bottom of the cliff.

Standing there looking up at the structure, Leslie reminded me that we had seen similar stones on Mt. Rainier. Sure enough, we actually saw them in May of this year on our trip with our pickup camper while crossing Mt. Rainier

The difference was that we looked at them from the highway, never getting nearly as close as we did to this structure.

With the telephoto lens, it almost seemed that we were right next to the columns.

Of course, after we got home Debbie told us that we should have climbed to the top of the cliff to observe the mosaic pattern the rocks form when looking directly down on them. Just another reason to return when we have more time to visit.

It’s a long drive from Great Basin National Park to Mono Lake, and, unless you’re lucky enough to be the passenger who can doze off regularly, you try hard to find something interesting to keep yourself from dozing off while staring at 50 miles of highway stretching straight into the distance. I focused on the mountain ranges and rugged rock formations which often struck me as beautiful and gave me an occasional reason to stop, stretch my legs and grab a quick shot. Unfortunately, with so many miles to cover I didn’t feel I had time to actually take a side trip and explore some of the mountain ranges I saw.

If the new Bad Elf that I had received just before I left on the trip hadn’t been defective, I might have recorded the GPS of this shot and been able to remember more precisely where it was taken, though the time stamp indicates it was probably close to the Nevada-California border. There was a whole series of structures like this, a formation I don’t recall having ever seen before.

Of course, it is easier to see rock formations in Nevada and Eastern California than it is in the Pacific Northwest because they aren’t hidden by dense forests. I’ve been surprised by huge boulders while hiking Mt. Rainier, boulders I would never have seen from the road.

As it turned out, the rock formations were an interesting prelude to the Tufa Towers that I saw at Mono Lake. The mysterious Tufa structures were almost as fascinating as the caves we had seen earlier at Great Basin National Park, and at times looked somewhat similar, at least to me.

It was past six when we arrived at Mono Lake, and although the sun was quite low on the horizon, I didn’t think we could wait until sunset to find a campground so I took these shots a little earlier than I really wanted to, especially having seen so many beautiful sunset shots taken at Mono Lake.

That said, I still love the various blues in this shot,

and the low sun gives a richer color to the Tufa Towers than I saw the next day in full daylight, particularly in this shot of Tufa Towers in the middle of the lake, where they almost seem to glow.

I’ve never seen anything quite like these, though apparently this is not the only place they are found. They are striking,

though I’m still not sure I would call them beautiful.

Perhaps the most striking thing about them is that they can only be formed under water. Those on the shoreline reveal just how far the lake has receded in recent years.

Los Angeles has diverted much of the water that used to flow into Mono Lake. The condition would probably be even worse but a judge mandated several years ago that the water levels must be raised back to a prescribed level in the next few years (though it’s not clear how the current drought might affect that ruling.) There were stakes at various distances from the current lake marking the depth of the lake at different times in the past. It was a real reminder of just how precious, and how precarious, our water supply really is.

The road leading up to, or down from, Great Basin National Park is lined with several examples of “folk art,” a phenomena I’ve observed on most of my long trips. I doubt many of these pieces would ever end up in museums, but I love them and will usually stop to photograph them, at least when they are on a long, isolated stretch of highway where it’s safe to pull over. I think they stand as a testament to peoples’ innate desire, and need, for art.

More often than not, they display a twisted sense of humor, which might explain why I like them. Here’s the one that first caught my attention.

It was hard to miss that turquoise face as I drove by, though it took awhile to recognize that those twisted coat hangers probably represented an antenna. It’s not hard to understand why someone might feel alienated, or even threatened by aliens, living out here in the middle of the high desert in Nevada, though you’d think they might find some comfort in nearby casinos and bordello.

If you can’t find comfort in your moonshine jug, it’s probably comforting to know that you’re likely to die with your cowboy boots on out here,

which somehow brought back fond memories of the year I was five and last wore my cowboy boots in Goldendale, Washington. Now they’d have to bury me with my sandals on.

It wasn’t until I had passed these more dramatic set pieces that I noticed a number of subtler figures festooning the barbed wire fence.

Judging from the wire frame, I suspect the poor girl’s dress is a little the worse for wear, probably to be expected if the weather we experienced on our two days there were any indication of what the weather can be like here.

The last, or first, set-piece depending on whether you’re coming or going, was this old four-door with no wheels.

Hopefully it will be a long while and a long ways from here before my Toyota Tacoma Camper suffers a similar fate.

I’m certainly not a spelunker. In fact, judging from past experiences in large caves, I probably have a mild case of claustrophobia. At the very least, such places often make me feel uncomfortable, wondering why I ever subjected myself to the experience. So, I was a little apprehensive when we first heard about Great Basin’s Lehman caves and even more undecided when we had to decide if we wanted the thirty minute tour or the ninety minute tour. As it turned out the well-lit caves didn’t affect me the way most caves had in the past; I was glad we decided on the ninety minute tour.

I also questioned whether it was worth taking a camera with me, but the caves were well-lit so I was able to get several shots that capture the feel of the caves; it probably helped that I had an expensive camera and shot HDR. The hardest part was trying to find something to actually focus on, particularly since they used spotlights to light up areas of the cave.

It was hard not to capture fantastical shapes wherever you pointed your camera.

Somehow these stalagmites and stalactite reminded me of old, deteriorated Asian ruins.

I liked the way different levels of the cave were illuminated. Often, lights at lower level seemed quite practical, helping to light the way through the caves. Overhead lights seemed less practical, but definitely added to the atmosphere of the caves.

This shot was taken looking back at a large “room” that our group had just walked through.

Try as I might, I couldn’t eliminate the washed out area without plunging the rest of the photo into total darkness.

Although we kept to a single walkway, it was obvious that spelunkers could explore other areas of the caves not commonly visited,

though I was perfectly content to stay on the beaten path. Our guide showed us places where the original spelunkers were forced to crawl far too far to reach the next section of the cave, often with nothing more than candles. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have been one of those crawling through the darkness with a candle.

Only those who take the 90 minute tour get to see this huge formation a the end of the tour.

I’m not sure I would call it beautiful, but it was certainly awe-some, like some alien life-form.