Sunset at Tenaya Lake, Saturday evening
Tioga Pass opened Saturday, making the Yosemite high country accessible again. We always like to see this terrain when it’s still covered in snow—a taste of winter in May or even June—so Claudia and I drove up on Saturday afternoon. There was a lot of snow, but based on reports we heard during the last two weeks we actually expected more. The recent warm weather has melted the snowpack quickly. But, as you can see from the short video below, we found some large snow banks, and Tenaya and Tioga Lakes were still mostly frozen.
Skies became increasingly overcast Saturday afternoon, so I photographed abstract patterns and subtle colors in the ice at Tenaya Lake, not expecting much of a sunset. But late in the day I noticed a hint of purple in the clouds, and soon the sky exploded into shades of red, allowing me to capture the image at the top of this post.
We ran into many photographers we knew along the road, and especially at the ever-popular Whoa Nellie Deli in Lee Vining. We had dinner with William Neill and family, and found G Dan Mitchell at the Cafe Latte Da Sunday morning. Earlier Sunday we ran into Vidya, a former workshop student and frequent commenter on this blog, and she suggested I create a Flickr group for people to share photos from Tioga Pass this weekend. Great idea! So if you photographed along the Tioga Road this past Saturday or Sunday, I’d love to see what you captured. Either post a link to images in the comments here, or upload them to the Flickr group.
Meanwhile, at lower elevations many flowers are blooming. There are still a few dogwoods in decent shape along Highway 120 between the entrance station and Crane Flat. In Yosemite Valley the cow parsnip and azaleas are just starting to appear. Irises were abundant in El Cap Meadow last Tuesday, but some may have been drowned by high water on Thursday!
Hot weather is forecast to return tomorrow and Wednesday, so the water level in Yosemite Valley should go back up, and minor flooding is expected again. I’ll be posting photos and video of last week’s high water here soon.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150286961256303.384539.650981302&l=8f7270fe82
Hi Michael, I’m a big fan of your work! My friend, Chris Publiski, and I were up there as well on Saturday and saw this amazing sunset for ourselves. I climbed the dome behind Olmsted Point to get it and was blown away by all the colors!! I included a link to my Facebook album of Saturday’s photos and would love for you to take a look!
Kristal, love your photos! What equipment are you using? You really covered a lot of distance on Saturday. I went on Monday and much of the ice was gone and there were no clouds.
Thank you! I have a Canon T2i and I used a Canon 18-135 and a Sigma 15mm fisheye that day! we started up at 7:30am and finished at 10pm, so, yes, we did cover a lot of ground 🙂
Wow!
We get some beautiful sunsets where I live but sadly we have no mountains so i love seeing this type of photo. This is a really fabulous picture. Such warm rich colours.
look forward to seeing more!
Hi Michael, I drove to Tioga pass on Sunday and strolled around the beautiful Tuolumne river. Snow is melting very quickly and the creeks and rivers are roaring. I am sharing the link to my Yosemite gallery, the first 6 photos in this were made on Sunday.
http://vaibhavt.zenfolio.com/yosemite
Thanks
Vaibhav
Kristal, thanks very much! You have some nice photos on Facebook – especially the waterfall with the lone tree.
Thanks Claire!
Vaibhav, thanks for sharing. Nice work, especially that second one of the cascade and sun.
Thank you very much! Your photos are an inspiration to me!
Your photo of Tenaya Lake is spectacular! I was at Olmsted Pt. I downloaded 5 photos but they went into my photostream, I think it was called. I will try tomorrow to get them into the Yosemite group account. Thank you for all that you do!
Lovely photography Michael. I spend sunset up at Olmstead Point and was set up in a spot that gave a great view towards both Half Dome and north towards Tenya Lake and Mt Conness and have added one image so far while I work on going thru the rest of my photos from my trip.
Kristal, I spent over an hour photographing that same cascade along Tioga road in the morning.
Mara and I just returned from skiing at Tioga Pass. We went to the Gaylor/Granite lakes basin. Both lakes are for the most part covered with ice. We had so much fun making turns back down to the road. I can’t believe it is the first day of summer! Nice image.
It has been said that sunsets are cliche, but they are part of the grand show here on Earth. Your photograph above is a beautiful and subtle exhibition of many colors and the serenity of the scene. Nice work.
Also, thank you for the video that allows us who weren’t there to live vicariously through your windshield. It is great to see all of the other photos along the Tioga Road too.
Krystal, I particularly like your third image in the third row. That is a great close-up.
Thanks for your comments everyone!
First, several people have uploaded images to the Flickr group I linked to in the post, including commenters above Phyllis and David. Nice collection of images – keep ’em coming!
Hugh, glad you had fun skiing to Gaylor and Granite Lakes! Plenty of snow.
David (Hyde), thanks very much. Yes, sunsets are tough to photograph, because they’ve been done so often. Unless it’s just the most amazing sunset ever, you have to try and find something a little different to do with it, which is what I tried to do with the ice in the foreground here. I wish I’d had time to also compose some more abstract versions with patterns of ice and red-orange reflections. But that color didn’t last long.
aahh, the sunset colors are so beautiful ! the reflection just makes the scene extra-special! Dang, I missed it !!
Thanks Vidya! Oh well…
The more I look at the Tenaya sunset shot the more I’m sure that’s a keeper. I might wish the faint glow on Medlicott in the background was a little stronger, but it’s beautiful anyway.
Thanks Eric! Glad you like it.
This may top my list of favorite Tenaya shots. Unusual, which makes it really stand out.
Doug
Thank you very much Doug!
We are constantly told by the “experts”, that a sunset is the easiest photograph to take. You have given the lie to that. What a gorgeous shot. I have tried many times to get a good sunset, but as yet I have not succeeded.
Kiwi, I think what makes photographing sunsets difficult is that we’ve all seen many sunset photos, and it’s hard to make one stand out. You either have to capture an amazing sky, or find a way to incorporate that sunset into an interesting composition. This wasn’t the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen, but the foreground was exceptional.