These images are all from a road trip that we took in September and October of 2005. The trip took two weeks and we covered 1500 miles. We flew in to San Francisco and took a rental car to Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake, Bodie Ghost Town, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks. The trip ended at Palm Springs.
Yosemite National Park
Ah beautiful Yosemite. One of the most well known and most visited of all America’s National Parks. It’s become a victim of its own popularity though by visiting late in the season the worst of the overcrowding was over. We stayed just outside the park which meant a few early mornings but it was worth it. We left the park via the Tioga Pass road which was beautiful and highly recommended.
Mono Lake
Mono Lake is a highly alkaline closed lake, fed by freshwater streams and rivers. It is famous for its towers of tufa rock. These are mineral deposits caused by underwater springs. They are visible now because the water level of the lake has been reduced dramatically because the fresh water river feeding the lake was diverted in the early 20th century to provide a water supply for the city of Los Angeles. Recent conservation efforts have begun to raise the water level again. The lake is the location for the iconic Hipgnosis cover photograph for the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here. We had two mornings here.
Bodie
Bodie is a ghost town in the hills near to the Nevada border. In the 19th century it was a gold rush town. After a long period of decline gold production finally ended in the 1940s, though it was known as a ghost town before that. Bodie is maintained in a state of ‘arrested decay’ which means that the 100 or so remaining buildings are being preserved, but not restored. We spent a fun afternoon there exploring and photographing.
Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks
This was our first visit to these parks and we didn’t really know what to expect (apart from huge trees). What we didn’t expect was forest fires with smoke blanketing the landscape. It turned out that the fires were controlled burns by the park service. The fires made for some interesting subjects but the landscape vistas were mostly a bust. We enjoyed doing the tourist thing with the giant sequoias and did our best to capture their majesty in a photograph.
Death Valley National Park
We stayed in the valley so we could be at the best spots before sunrise. Amazingly there was water in the valley when we were there. Huge salt lakes from (we assume) recent rains. There were also some clouds (which we didn’t see on our previous visit) which combined with the water to give us an amazing reflected sunset.
Joshua Tree National Park
Famous for its eponymous trees this park had much more variety of subjects than we expected. Cactii in abundance (some of them evil) interesting rock formations and of course the trees themselves.
