Eastern Sierra Fall Color Report 9-26-09

Before I go into the details of the fall color and the locations I visited, I wanted to warn anyone going, be careful. I seen more reckless drivers over this past weekend then I've seen ever. On Rock Creek Road above the lake, I was almost hit head on a few times by people driving 30-40 mph on the one lane section. Most of the drivers wouldn't even move to the side of the road and slow down. The worse section of road was near Lake Sabrina, one guy driving a large truck ran me off the road.

But by far the worse thing I saw was a woman driving a Ford Taurus wagon almost running over a pedestrian. Just below Lake Sabrina, 2 female photographers pulled over on the one side of the road near a bridge. When one of them was crossing the street, the driver in the taurus doing about 30-40mph came up behind her. Instead of slowing down, they floored the gas as they went around the pedestrian, scaring her because she couldn't hear the car comming. So watch yourselves out there.

Ok onto the report. My trip started out friday night (Sept 25) when we drove up to Eastern Sierras from Big Bear Lake. I decided we'd camp in Rock Creek area. So we drove up Rock Creek Road. All of the smaller campgrounds were full, so we stayed at East Fork, which was less then half full. Next morning we woke up at 5am and drove to North Lake in Bishop Creek Canyon. Most of my best photos were in this area. I'd say most of the trees are near peak or peak here. There are still some green trees around, but all and all I'd say it's good here.

The sunrise was great.
As the sun came up farther in the sky, it lit up the area. And I took this panoramic.


This is from a meadow near North Lake.
The road from North Lake to the campground.

After North Lake and the area's around there, I went up to Lake Sabrina. Some good color here.

After this area the sun was up pretty high and the photography wasn't as good, so we returned to the campground in Rock Creek. The trees in East Fork Campground were half yellow half green. The trees above Rock Creek Lake were peaking or past peak. Some of the leaves already fell off the trees. But there was good color here and there.

Panoramic of Rock Creek Lake

Panoramic of Rock Creek between the lake and Mosquito Flat

We left later in the afternoon to head home. On the way I stopped at Convict Lake and took this shot. There's a little color here but it's got a way to go yet.

You can see the rest of the photos from our trip on my Flickr album.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42490701@N05/sets/72157622343043947/

You can see my other photography at my website.
www.luminous-exposure.com/pics.html