Desolation Wilderness photos

“Photos

Wanderer and I missed each other along the way, but I LOVE this place. I'll be going back soon.

Be sure and check out the snow cave!”

“WOW, great photos.
you have an eye for beauty!
not sure where this place is, can you tell me where it is?”

“Yah, nice camera work!”

“Desolation wilderness is up near soth lake tahoe in California.

It's hard to take a bad picture in the place, everything is gorgeous!”

“You backpack?”

“be nice mutt!”

“And you, sMutt?”

“Thanks for the photos, Phaed. I haven't been there since '98. Did you go by Susie Lake?”

“Those are really nice photos. That snow cave was really cool!”

“Dun, no, I didn't. I definitely am going to explore the area in more detail in the future, though.

Thanks, Tree!”

“I would love to go there, again. It would make a great TT get-together.”

“Heaaaa yeaaaaaaaa boyeeeeeeee”

“I've had thoughts of two groups hiking in from the opposite ends and meeting in the middle somewhere. Now, that would be cool.”

“Sort of like what would have happened with Wanderer and I, had we not missed each other.


Hey... Was that a sierrapalooza reference?!?”

“What lake was Temp 026 taken at? I'd like to go there.”

“That's lake Aloha. I have that one as my wallpaper right now :)”

“Phaed, how were the bugs?

Tree, I've been by Susie Lk a number of times, there's a nice x-country route from it up to Half Moon Lk.”

“Not too bad, Dunk. The mosquitoes were sierra-normal, and there were a few more flies than I'd seen elsewhere, but DEET kept me from getting eaten, and I had a comfortable hike. I've definitely seen worse.”

“Desolation wilderness kicks :) I hiked up to Dicks pass and dicks lake once and it was still way snowy in july. How was the snow on dicks pass for you?”

“Nobody named Dick has EVER made a pass at me.”

“Nice pics, Phaed. Thanks!!”

“Phaed:

Mind if I repost your photos at the High Sierra Topix board?

Great photos BTW...”

“or you can if you want... (link off of my profile)”

“From the pics, it looks like you took the PCT past Echo and Tamarack to the northern end of Aloha. Did you visit any other areas? Did you take the water taxi?”

“Sierra, feel free to repost those pics wherever you'd like. I'm flattered.

Dunk, I took the water taxi up, since I was trying to meet up with Wanderer, but I hiked all the way back, and you're right on with the areas. Those are the only places I went.”

“I like Aloha Lake too, my kinda place. I haven't done much hiking in that area. Thanks for posting the pics.”

“Phaed:

Posted...thanks.”

“Aloha is an awesome swimming lake when the water level drops and warms up.”

“I have to go to Sacramento for work at the end of September - maybe I'll head over to Lake Aloha after my work is done.”

“I Love this one!!!”

“Wonderful photos Phaedrus.

I noticed many of your shots have a near field tendency. Maybe it was just the outing, but I wonder why subjects close-by catch your attention and seem photo worthy.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your hike.”

“I was skinney dipping in aloha once....forgot to pack a swimsuit and the water looked so refreshing...Just couldnt help myself. :)”

“Uhh, thanks for the info, free!

Tekdude, while I'm not trained in photo composition at all, I have found that, in cases of the distances I encountered up there, it is usually necessary to have something in the foreground to give the picture some depth. Otherwise, it ends up looking flat, or without a sense of scale.

How do you generally go about it?”

“We actually had a Desolation trip about 3 years ago that some TT\'ers were on. I was headed up with some friends & posted here to invite anyone to join us. Too give you an idea of how long ago it was... Obi Wan Canoli, Tommy and Freedom (with Keeter dog) were those who came along. It was a Memorial Day weekend, we entered at Echo Lake, hiked up past Aloha & camped at Gilmore first nite. Next day we were to cross Dick\'s Pass & exit down Eagle Falls trail. Well, there was still about 4 or 5 feet of snow up on the pass, and we had to post-hole through for quite awhile, a couple miles as I recall. It was a pretty tough hike due to the snow, ever since then I\'ve been reluctant to plan TT hikes as I always felt like I didn\'t give everyone enough info on what we could encounter up there. Gotta be careful planning these trips!”

“Know how it is, wanderer. With experience, I've learned to set up contingencies in the event something causes a change unexpectedly. Although, even then sometimes you've go no choice but to just make the most of your outing as is.”

“Phaed -

There's a video I had by Don Dale on Photographing the Sierra. He spent a lot of time on the technique of setting up a foreground element. My VCR ate the video a couple weeks back.

Not sure what it is. Camera position, lighting, use of shadows,..mostly just intuition probably. I think upward and angled "hero-shots" also work with landscape images of scale. Compare that to eye level or downward angled shots where your subject can appear reduced or minimized. Picked that technique up in Canon handbook some years back.

Lot's of variables.”