Picture of the week

High Sierra Lake

Robinson Lake within the Hoover Wilderness.  Photographed during a hike out from the Sawtooth mountain range within the backcountry of the Hoover Wilderness with three other friends.  This image was captured during a relatively short three day backpack trip out Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, California.  A motivation for this particular hike is the relative ease for getting a wilderness permit on the same day from the Bridgeport Ranger Station (assuming you are not here on the weekend).  Some haze was present from fires burning on the Central Coast of California, wafting smoke across the state and into the midsection of the Sierra.

For this particular backpack trip we started at the Mono Village RV campground at Twin Lakes.  After parking the truck in a dusty parking lot and paying a relatively exorbitant $20 fee, we got a relatively late start at about 2pm.   The next challenge was getting past the ugliness of what seemed to be a hundred RVs, the innumerable lawn chairs, American flags, yappy little dogs, campfire smoke, and the occasional waft of sewage in the air.  We climbed out of this valley and reached Barney Lake in about 4 miles.  From there the environment and scenery becomes much more pleasing, also getting beyond the crowds of the day hikers and horseback trains out of the Mono Village cesspool.   We reached Peeler Lake for the first night, and then for the second night setting up a base camp near the junction with Mule Pass about a mile past Crown Lake, after going over Rock Island Pass at the northern edge of Yosemite.  The terrain here is much less traveled, while still offering many scenic lakes and high sierra peaks.  If you want to climb the Matterhorn in the Sawtooth Range, then another 1-2 days should be budgeted for establishing a closer base camp near Burro Pass.

For this particular trip I experimented with an ultra lightweight backpack setup, getting my pack weight just below 30 pounds including a small bear cannister with food and a quart of water.  As a reference to help with such trip planning, I have compiled an itemized list of my pack for different configurations as shown in this pdf.

Camera gear-wise, I just brought a higher end point-and-shoot Canon G7X with its 1" CX sensor, spare battery, and a small lightweight tabletop tripod.  This kept the weight of my camera gear to about 1.8 pounds, as opposed to the 5-7 pound budget I normally travel with when using my Canon 70D cropped body, EF-S 18-135mm IS lens, larger tripod, and various filters.  This lighter setup made it also more convenient for more snapshot oriented photography without slowing the pace of the hike, being able to keep the camera handy in a pouch on my hip belt.  The optics on the G7X are not as good as what I am used to with a DSLR, and the lack of a viewfinder is something I find limiting for more careful compositions.  I compsensated for the optical issues by keeping the aperture in the sweet spot of the lens around f/8.  For hikes targetting photography as a higher priority goal, then I believe staying with a DSLR is a better choice.  But having just clear blue skies for this trip, no love was lost for not lugging the heavier equipment.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2010-2016.  Last updated: 8/22/2016   ()