Hi fellow photographers. I'd like to thank those that posted in the other threads about travel to the high Sierras. The threads helped me decide on what to do. Now i offer some advice, from someone who was just there, mid June. I drove from Tucson, Arizona, towing a 1958 camper, so some of my decisions were based on that.
In general, we liked the less crowded Kings Canyon and Tuolumne Meadows (way out of the Yosemite valley, and much higher). My route from Tucson zigzagged towards Fresno, CA, trying to not be on Interstate highways the whole time. We went through Joshua Tree, for example. If you are towing or driving slow, you should know I-10 from AZ to CA is extremely fast, busy, and chaotic. It's very white knuckle driving if you are trying to stay below 75 MPH (again, I was towing a 1958 camper). I found I could drive the secondary roads most of the time, at about 60mph.
Weather in June anywhere except the high elevations is very, very hot. I sometimes registered over 100 degrees for hours at a time, even in the evening towards sundown. You don't want to try to camp anywhere in the Soutwest that is below about 6,000 feet in June. So we drove long hours to get to the high ground. At 6,000 it was usually about 80 degrees, dry, and nice. Still too hot for me, so I stayed above 8,000 when I could, which was 70 degrees day, and 40s at night. perfect!
First, we went to Kings Canyon, which is on the northern boundary of Sequoia National Park. It was not crowded, and most of the campgrounds were about 1/3 full during the week. We had no trouble finding a campsite with huge boulders and a view and Sequoias. Large format opportunities abound, anything from giant trees, to huge mountain valleys, to roaring rivers. I could have spent more than 5 days there, but wanted to check out Yosemite. The difference was like night and day.
Yosemite Valley was much more crowded. Drivers were angry, cutting each other off, roaring to the next parking spot at 60 MPH, blocking each other trying to find parking, etc. Basically, it sucked. How you would find a place to set up LF, and not get people in the shot, I don't know. Some places, like the falls, were like a Spring Break video, with close to a hundred people climbing all over the rocks around the falls, yelling and screaming at their more fearful partners below. I spent about 30 minutes in the Valley and bailed.
We drove up Tioga pass to Toulumne Meadows, where I got a reservation to camp (pretty easy, even just a week before travel). It was a LONG, very beautiful drive to the meadows from the Valley, about 1 3/4 hours. There were many overlooks, beautiful alpine lakes, and cool meadows. You could spend a day driving slow, parking at overlooks, and taking LF shots. The campground was much better than the Valley, full of serious backpackers, climbers, and outdoor enthusiasts. I spent another 5 days there. Read: the opposite of what you'll get in the valley. There are more rock domes, alpine lakes, and falls around here than you'd ever be able to shoot. My advice is go there.
Reply With Quote
) rotated the camera, put on the 450mm, recomposed, and clicked the shutter just as the sunset backlighting left the budding aspen in the upper left. I almost never take the opportunity to shoot wildlife with any image making device, even though I am a biologist by degree, but the challenge of doing so with LF simply overcame me. Here is the scanned 5x7 (cropped 3:5) – Ilford FP4+, f22, ¼ sec., PMK Pyro. The middle deer is positively Lamarckian 
:
Originally Posted by Vaughn
Bookmarks