This Memorial Day weekend my in-laws invited us on a trip to June Lake. When my mother-in-law first asked I had visions of swimming in the lake, lots of hiking, fishing and just romping around in the woods with the kids. We even planned on going camping. Then we heard about how cold it "might" be and changed our plans to a cabin and took a chance.
Well it turned out that you could still ski in Mammoth that weekend, so you get the picture of the weather conditions. I had no idea it was still that cold in spring/summer in the Eastern Sierra's, but it did provide me with an amazing photographic opportunity.
One of the first things you notice about the Eastern Sierra's, especially if you a girl like me who grew up in Northern California and going to places like Lake Tahoe, it is that the landscape is very barren. Seriously, there are hardly any trees and most of the trees are on the mountains or very close to lakes, but the general landscape is treeless. It is almost desert like, but when you go in spring it is absolutely breath taking as you can see clear across the landscape for miles with snow capped mountains.
As you drive through Highway 395 everywhere you turn there seems to be a majestic view that just takes your breath away. So instead of being inspired by the details in life, which I so often photograph, I couldn't stop taking pictures of the view. I had visions of printing it out and decorating my kitchen wall with all these landscapes, who knows maybe I will.
The place I took the most pictures was of Mono Lake. This is a salt water lake in the middle of all these fresh water lakes. It has no fish and only contains brine shrimp who have somehow learn to adapt in those conditions. The water is absolutely stunning and almost looks like the Caribbean in his green, blue hues and I couldn't stop taking pictures of it from almost every angle I was.
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| Mono Lake (on a road to Bodie) |
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| Mono Lake |
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| Mono Lake |
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| Mono Lake (at vistor center) |
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| South Mono Lake (tuftas) |
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| South Mono Lake |
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| Mono Lake (on our attempt to hike to Parker Lake; never made it) |
They call Minnesota the land of a thousand lakes, but June Lake just reminded me of that saying. I have to say I had a rude awakening on this visit. When you look at a map, at every turn there is a lake that you could hike to in the mountains, not to mention the 5 lakes that were visible within the June Lake driving loop. I was amazed and disappointed that we couldn't swim, but maybe we'll come back in August so we can really take advantage.
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| June Lake Loop (the view from my cabin balcony) |
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| Gull Lake |
Here are the majestic Sierra's in spring and basically what you see everytime you turn your head driving through the 395.
Unfortunately we had a bit of weather problems when we were traveling. On Saturday it was gorgeous, a bit windy, but gorgeous which is when I took a majority of these pictures. Mid-day with lots of clouds make great overviews of a landscape. I also give credit to my inlaws. Everytime I asked to stop and take a picture and apologized they both said, we don't care please take as many as you like and keep telling us to stop, so I did! Unfortunately on Sunday we had some snowy and overcast weather which is great for portraits, but terrible for landscapes, not even the interesting rays of the sun peaked out for me to capture an interesting shot. I even went to photograph a waterfall which I thought was exciting and the light was so flat I knew the pictures wouldn't work the moment I started taking them.
So more to come on our adventures because we had many more stops, but I wanted to share the beauty of spring in the Sierra's because that is what captivated and inspired me the most on this vacation.
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