True Nature Stories: Sierra Fall Color

The Rock That Needs No Introduction

A quick trip, but so many sublime moments, starting with my arrival at Yosemite's Olmsted Point just in time to catch the sunrise. A world of glaciated granite and vanilla-scented pines; the top of Half Dome catching the first rays of the day; the dry air a bracing 29 degrees and free of smoke. I'd be taken by surprise when I returned home the next day via Sonora Pass and encountered a great deal of smoke, possibly from the lightning-caused Quarry Fire that's been burning in the Stanislaus National Forest for more than a month.

I'd left home at 3 a.m. with no plan for where to be at sunrise. My only thought was to see the sights along Tioga Pass -- to make sure I didn't leave so early that I'd cross in the dark -- then hope for good pika weather on the far side of the pass, among the talus surrounding the Nunatak Nature Trail.

I staked out a position at the base of the scree slope where the jumble of rocks was mostly a dark-hued rusty color (the white rocks were too bright). Nothing to do but wait for a pika to show up and move within range of my lens. In the meantime I just enjoyed the beautiful but silent morning. After standing still for a few minutes I noticed that the silence began to lift: the chickaree was scolding something in the distance once again; the robins and Clark's nutcrackers were singing and getting back to work; nature's baseline was restored. Just a little longer and I was soon observing a lone pika as it plucked its fresh breakfast greens while also observing me.

Next stop was Lee Vining Canyon, where I hoped to find the location of a shot I took in October 2011. The aspens along the creek were lovely, but despite all my poking around I was unable to find the spot until I was about to leave. "Well, I'll just bushwhack a little down this embankment and see what's down there." Voila. I realized it was the place (lots of horsetail and aspens) and went back to the car to get my camera. The aspens had lost most of their leaves, so it's no wonder I failed to spot the location right off. I fired off a few frames anyway since I'd spent so much time looking for it.

Lundy Canyon was my next stop, and I experienced one of my favorite fall-color moments of the trip while looking for a shady campsite to park and eat some lunch. I stopped at a beautiful stand of aspen, and while I was looking through my viewfinder a gust of wind sent dozens of aspen leaves fluttering through the air like golden snowflakes.

My next stop was going to be Sagehen Summit, which I've never been to before. On the way out SR120 south of Mono Lake, and well past Mono Mills, the highway takes a left and begins a long straight section. Even from far off, it looked like maybe a cop car was coming in the opposite direction. I looked at my speedometer and saw I had lead-footed myself up to 71 mph, and I hoped that was okay. As the patrol officer drove past me he made a vehement "slow down!" motion with his left hand, and my heart sank as I watched the rearview mirror, certain that he was going to turn around and cite me. I also checked my navigation screen and saw that I was in a 60 mph zone. Dang. I kept driving and soon went around a bend while I kept looking for the approaching lightbar of doom, but I soon turned onto the dirt road to Sagehen Summit feeling like I'd dodged a bullet.

I never got all the way to the aspen area. What I could see from a distance didn't look that promising, and the unpaved road wasn't that great in the Mazda. Just past a ranch where I was going to turn around, a coyote with a beautiful full coat trotted toward me, coming right down the middle of the road. It dodged into the weeds as I passed, then returned to the road, only to have to hit the weeds once again when I turned around to head back out.

On the way back toward Mono Lake I stopped near the base of the Mono Craters and parked in the shade of a big pine to have a little bite to eat from my cooler, along with an ice-cold drink of water. As the sun dropped ever closer to the Sierra crest I drove down to Navy Beach to photograph the formations of sand tufa. I'd recently read about horses hanging around Mono Lake, but most of the landscape was so denuded by fire that it seemed impossible that horses could survive.

As I hiked out toward the tufa towers I was surprised I couldn't find them. It's been a while since I was out there, and I wondered if the horses had demolished the elegant structures. Piles of old horse pucky were all over. Thankfully, I finally reached the main event, where I noticed two trail cameras that had been set up, presumably to monitor horses, not human visitors.

After photographing the tufas in the last direct light of the sinking sun's rays, I took a seat to wait for sunset. Alone with the strange sand-tufa formations, I listened to the water lapping against the lakeshore and the occasional bird call from out on the lake. A couple of coyotes sang out a few melodious notes to each other. A wasp investigated a small tufa tower, possibly hunting insects or sizing up a future nest site. A promising deck of cloud cover had moved in during the afternoon, but you never know if you're going to get any color.

While I was waiting I ruminated on a couple of books I've been reading, one an argument that cells are the real heroes of life, not DNA (which the author likens to the tools used by a builder, namely the cell), the other an argument that calculus is "the language of God." Centered in that wide-open landscape I felt the awesome beauty of life's journey from an exploding singularity to all the chemical elements that shaped this planet and gave birth to life itself. Somewhere deeper than the cell, and deeper than calculus, lies the tantalizing mystery of how it has all come together to shape the present moment.

My reverie broke when the sunset colors began, and I tried to make a few photographs in the quickly changing light. First there were strokes of red over the Sierra crest, then way out past Black Point, and then -- what the heck? -- over here above Mono Craters.

Back at the car I ate some more pasta salad while taking in the view of the darkening lake, then drove up to park for the night along Virginia Lakes Road so I'd be in position to photograph the aspens in Dunderberg Meadow first thing in the morning. I was all done by around 9:30 a.m. the following day and drove up to Sonora Pass, wondering if there would be any more color up that way, and thinking I would just head home if it had already passed. Except for a little bit of color in the creek canyons, most of the aspens appeared to have lost their leaves some time ago. Above the pass, the mountains and meadows looked as closed for the season as several of the shops in Bridgeport.

Dawn at Olmsted Point

Creekside, Tioga Road

Frosty Meadow

Golden Willows

Lakeside Grasses

Morning Light Along Tioga Road

A group of deer crossed the road in front of me as I approached the park exit, so I pulled into a small, handy parking lot, grabbed my camera, and waited for the deer to come into view. I only got two frames before they lost themselves in the shadows.

Nanook of the Nunatak

What's Up, Doc?
(The pika would eat whole stalks without using its hands.)

Pika on the Move

American Pika
(Ochotona princeps)

This is a general view of the pika habitat along the Nunatak Nature Trail. Note the pika's "haystacks" pouring out from below the central rock.

Rabbitbrush & Aspens, Lee Vining Canyon

Roadside Forest

Falls on Lee Vining Creek

Forest Bathing, With Notes of Vanilla

Horsetail and Aspen Grove

Lundy Lake Cottonwood

Aspen leaves cover the road like fallen snow.

Golden Forest

Mono Craters view from near the County Park. The yellow line of riparian aspens drifts down Lee Vining Creek to Mono Lake.

Much of the landscape surrounding Mono Lake's South Tufa area was laid bare by the Beach Fire three years ago.

Sundog Over the Sierra

Sand Tufa at Navy Beach

Last Light on Mono Lake's Sand Tufa Formations

Sunset in the Tufa Garden

Sand Tufa Topped With Limestone Icing

Night Sky Along Virginia Lakes Road

The elemental iron at the center of each of the 35 trillion red blood cells now coursing through your veins and pumping through your heart was born billions of years ago when it was created by an exploding star and sprayed into the vastness of outer space.