The Eastern Sierras

As promised, here is the first of a few photos that I recently took in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains while camping with a my friend Nick. (see http://www.nickspeaks.com).

It started late, as it always does. Leaving 2 hours later than we originally thought we'd leave, we got on the 405 freeway and headed north. The ever present L.A. traffic carried us along to the 5 freeway, where traffic let up a bit, and we eventually met the 14. Leaving later, meant arriving later. Arriving later, meant changing plans.

As we cruised up the 14, and consecutively the 395, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of nostalgia as I saw somewhat familiar places. I couldn't help but remember silly memories. Memories of a friend sticking his head out a window while I was driving 80, just so he could feel the air. Stupid? Yes, but very memorable. I couldn't help but remember seeing signs for alien beef jerky out in the middle of nowhere. I remember a gas station that no longer exists. Silly memories. I also couldn't help but think that this will be the last trip I take with one of my best friends for a while.

As we reached the town of Lone Pine, plan changes began. Instead of catching sunset in the white mountains, we went to the Alabama Hills. We entered the Alabama Hills via movie road (look it up). As we pulled up, sunset began. I began to prepare my camera gear to shoot sunset, when I realized I forgot my primary CF card. Bravo. Luckily, I carry spares. Unluckily, I discovered that these spares were un-formatable, according to my camera. This led to me carrying a 20 pound camera bag for half a mile for no reason. After some slightly adventurous (read: stupid) climbing on my part, we meandered back to the car as sunset truly became dusk. When we got to the car, Nick attempted to fix my cards, but in the end, removing the batteries from my camera and trying to format again fixed it. According to Nick, "its just another computer" and a restart fixes all (unless you run windows...witch I do).

Having fixed my cards, we headed back towards the rocks we explored earlier. As we walked out, dusk became night, and we soon found ourselves depending on our flashlights on that moonless night. After a slight mix up, we arrived back at our pre-explored rock. At this point, it was too dark for any decent landscapes, so I decided to shoot some pseudo-portraits of Nick. This is one of those. The others look a lot like it.

Afterwards, we headed back towards the car, and after getting a little turned around, we gave thanks to the men who invented glossy paint and car reflectors (picture flashlights scanning the dark, and a lot of "I don't remember there being a path here"). We headed back down Movie Road, to Whitney Portal Road, to the 395 on which we continued through the night. As I drove, I knew that I had just created another one of those silly memories.