After leaving our fantastic campsite on Minaret Lake, we rejoined the John Muir Trail and headed north. For about six miles after the junction with the Minaret Lake trail, the JMT has to skirt a large volcanic ridge in order to get anywhere. The trail isn’t difficult to follow, but it is all uphill, and its about 6 additional miles to a small, secluded lake–Rosalie Lake, where we decided to camp for the night. This made for about a 12-mile day. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were much worse than we’d seen, and I’d even say they were maddening. Of course, if there’s a mosquito within 100 miles, it’ll find me. It just goes to show that a tent can not only be shelter, but sanctuary.
I got out the next morning to photograph sunrise on Rosalie, and got some nice images of the volcanic ridge we’d been hiking around lit up in the early morning light.
Rosalie Lake and Volcanic Ridge at dawn, July 2010
After eating breakfast and packing up, we headed down the trail to Shadow Lake, which is easily accessible as a day hike from Agnew Meadows. We walked around Shadow Lake and headed on to Garnet Lake, which is a bit iconic, but still very pretty. Garnet Lake offers fantastic views of the northern Ritter Range, especially Mt. Ritter and Banner Peak. I thought some submerged logs in Garnet would make a great foreground for this image.
Garnet Lake, July 2010
At Garnet Lake, I also found a great example of what can happen if you look underfoot. The rocks here were fantastic, and had gorgeous bands of what I think is olivine (maybe serpentinite?) embedded in them. I couldn’t help but photograph these rocks. I used Tony Kuyper’s luminosity masks to really make the colors glow.
Garnet Lake Rocks, July 2010
We would continue on to Thousand Island Lake to spend the night. That’ll be the subject of my next blog entry. In the meantime, check out all of my Sierra Nevada photos by clicking here.
Very nice work. I especially like the rocks.
Many thanks, pj. You can’t help but become something of a geologist as you hike through the Sierra…
Hi Greg, Yay for the High Sierra. I enjoyed your narrative. Many photographers have said the Minarets are tough to photograph well and do something that has not been done before. I particularly like your rock photograph.
Thanks, David and PJ. The rocks were pretty cool there; I would have liked to spend more time with them alone, but alas, I only had about 15 minutes. They made for great abstract subjects.
Also, David, after having been to Minaret Lake, I can see how the compositions there are quite limited. So, I can see what other photographers mean by the Minarets being challenging.