As I hinted—but perhaps not strongly enough, I don’t think the actual summit of Mount Williamson is visible in Adams’s photograph. I think the two sharp peaks near the center of the image are somewhere along the ridge line leading up to Mount Williamson. But they definitely are in the vicinity of Mount Williamson rather than seven miles to the south.
I tried to do this many years ago, but found the road (near Shepherd Creek) pretty dicey for a low-clearance vehicle, and didn’t pursue it too aggressively. A Google search shows many photos taken from the actual location. Unlike Adams’s image, some of them have clear skies, making features easier to identify.It would be helpful to revisit Manzanar and exactly locate the big boulder in question as a reference. At the visitor center they no doubt know exactly where it is, and might even have formally identified on some outdoor trail by now.
Estimating the camera position to be near Shepherd Creek, I’d say the aim is close to directly at Mount Williamson. But the actual summit is occluded by the ridge. Trojan Peak is considerably lower and noticeably to the south, though it’s visible in Adams’s image. Playing with this in Google Earth, it’s fairly easy to get a rendition of the Sierra ridgeline that’s pretty close to Adam’s image.the aim is distinctly south of Williamson and further back, and to something smaller and more pointy than anything identifiable on the long summit ridge of Williamson itself. TROJAN PEAK would be the most likely candidate
If we treat US 395 as running north–south (which is usually how I think of it, much like El Camino Real or SR 101), Mount Williamson is approximately due east of Manzanar.Otherwise, you seem to understand how I spoke of the location of Willamson relative to Manzanar in the intuitive manner that we think of Hwy 395 in its labeled north or south direction, while it really trends somewhat diagonal in that area; likewise the orientation of the steep eastern front of the Sierra itself parallel to the highway.
So the actual summit of Mount Williamson may not be visible in Adams’s image. But the image faces in that direction, so I don’t think Adams’s image was disingenuous.
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