Alabama Hills

On the third full day of our trip, we were able to join our pre-planned route and spend some time in the Alabama Hills by Lone Pine.  If you recall from our Fresno trip from November of last year, we loved it so much we promised to return.  

We arrived by early afternoon to mixed conditions.  The skies were pretty much overcast with the occasional break that somehow didn’t immediately lend itself for photographs.  So instead, Ann and I decided to drive around (off-road) to both scout for camping sites as well as to decide where we wanted to be for the next morning’s sunrise.  That gave us an opportunity to put the rig into 4 wheel drive and to test out the new Hellwig helper springs, as well as to give Ann an opportunity to see what driving the rig was like off-road.  

There are numerous side roads off the main dirt track through the Alabama Hills, and those side roads lead to further off-tracks, many of which we explored.  Eventually, we drove by a collection of rocks that had a giant fissure that ran through all of them, and I had to stop.  I wound up making four different images of the fissure and, at first take, I think this is the best one. 

While making those images, Ann was off doing her thing in the other direction, so I kept at it.  I then saw a composition fairly high up on one of the walls, and the mountain goat in me (don’t ask me which side of the family that comes from!) had me scrambling up a series of rocks so I was a couple of stories above the ground balancing myself and my gear on a rock that wasn’t nearly as wide as I’d hoped.

Unfortunately the image from that shot didn’t pan out.  Even worse, I dropped my lens cap, and wound up having to look for it on the far side of the boulders.  Thank goodness for happy accidents because when I made it around the boulder I not only easily found my lens cap, but I had an image waiting for me.  

As you can see, the desert flowers were still in bloom.  While past the peak of the superbloom, we were fortunate to see a lot of green and colorful plants throughout the early stages of our travels through the desert.  These plants are simply amazing to be able to survive in that environment.

As we moved on to explore different sites for our early morning shots, we came across plenty more blooms.

We even saw several plants that looked like they were in a cocoon, which Ann later found out is a parasite

And, because we’re so enamored with our vehicle, we made plenty of iPhone shots of the rig.

While scouting out some of the campsites I’d found on Google Earth (they were all taken by the time we showed up), the skies skies started lightening up a bit and Ann Identified a great spot to make photographs so we pulled over and got out.   At first, there was a really soft quality to the light that not only gave form to the rocks, but started revealing the textures in the clouds

But after about 20 minutes of photographing, the skies opened up and gave us a very different scene. 

Eventually the cloud cover grew again and we had more clouds than light and decided to find a spot to camp.

Earlier in the day we had found a site up a fairly steep road, but next to some rocks that we could climb for an early morning photograph.  So after confirming that all of the other potential sites were full, we decided to see if that one was still available.  Luckily, it was.

About 10 minutes after we’d pulled up (and before we nestled the rig between the tall rocks), another vehicle drove up and asked us if we were staying in that spot.  That resolved the matter for us - yes, that’s where we were going to spend the night!

It was the best of possible mornings.  Wake up before dawn, get dressed, make coffee, then climb up some rocks to get a great pre-dawn view of Mount Whitney.

While Ann and I tried to photograph the rocks around us (some of which were wonderfully shaped), we’d enjoyed our coffee so much that the sky had lightened to the point that everything in the foreground was black and we had to wait until the sun to rise to get any more shots.  As we waited, we noticed the clouds in the east and worried that we weren’t going to get any sun.  But as is often (but not always) the case, the sun found some gaps and illuminated the mountain side. 

But it didn’t last long.  Within minutes, the light faded and all we were left with were spots of sunlight briefly hitting the mountain side, only to disappear after a few moments.

By that point, we were getting hungry so we decided to pack up and head to the Alabama Hills Cafe for breakfast to fuel up for the rest of our day!