You're probably right Ben. An early morning start and end of day return may be better than trying to hitch back and forth. It's only 3.5 miles from the road.
BTW, I am planning on shooting Tioga Lake in the late afternoon while there is still good illumination on Mt. Conness in the far background with my 360mm just to the right of where yours was taken. The clear atmosphere and superb light should make for a fine image.
http://www.flickr.com//photos/gallery_alternative/show/
Really nice trip to Yosemite! Except for myself no LF photographers - just the usual tourists types with DSLR's; but I did see a middle aged lady packin' a Canon 35mm film camera and a guy with a Hassy.
The park opened Glacier Point Road for the weekend and sundown Saturday afternoon saw me set-up with the 45CF at the tip of the point. With the last vestiges of sunlight shown upon Half Dome, I took the first exposure exposing for the general landscape and then waited about an hour until the full moon rose directly over the dome and then exposed for the moon. A little snafu intervened with my forgetting to release the lock on the cable release and until I developed the negative last night I thought that I had double exposed the the second exposure and shook the camera in the process. But the negative looks good with the moon a dark circle. At this point I am unable to tell if I did indeed double expose the moon as I may have had the lens cap on when I cocked the shutter. But I didn't hear or feel anything at the time. The next time I do this I'm going to place the moon on zone 4 instead of 5.
The back-country was nice and peaceful with few fellow travelers and not enough snow to impede travel without snowshoes or skis. On Sunday I hiked out to Middle Gaylor Lake immediately following two other parties totaling 5 persons. The trail-head is at the east entrance station at 10K and I was surprised to see this many starting the same hike where the snow would be the deepest. I only settled for this hike because I passed-up the trail-head for lower Gaylor Lake and decided to go for middle lake as it was around noon with sundown at around 4:30. It turned out that the snow was deepest (knee deep) only at the very beginning and then settled down to a couple of packed inches and clear spots with the trail being easy to follow.
Yosemite Falls was still flowing with this years runoff with ice and snow frozen against the rock to mark its fall. Bridalveil, which always has some flow, had even more ice and snow frozen to its wall and came thundering down in intervals as the air warmed. Bridalveil, with its soft flowing waters and snow and ice adhering to its dark rock, made for a striking image and I exposed 4 sheets with the 360mm lens mounted on the 45C which I had brought specifically for this shot.
Camping in the valley was plentiful and I had my choice of campsites at Camp 4. Before departing on Monday I stopped in the Ansel Adams Gallery to view the forums Kerik Kouklis' display of Gum-Platinum images on display there. Excellent! That gives me something to look forward to when I reach that process.
Thomas
I forgot to mention that an announcement of a major exhibit of AA's work at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock, CA through 8 January was posted on the door at the Ansel Adams Gallery. http://www.carnegieartsturlock.org/page25.html
Thomas
My fingers are crossed that it will still be open after Christmas and I can actually sneak away long enough to get there!
would have loved to have met you up there Thomas...
Robert Oliver
Just got back from Yosemite. Everything was open! Tioga, Glacier and Mariposa grove! Stood at glacier point at 12:30 today. No wind and clear. This morning it was 25 degrees. Great ice cascades in Bridalveil creek! Took the 8x10 and 14x17. Only LF and ULF shooter in the park!
All park roads are still open surpassing the previous 1995 record of December 11th and no rain/snow is in sight at least thru Christmas Day. It's very possiblethat the park roads will still be open on New Years Day.
Thomas
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