Fall Foliage in the High Sierra's

For several years now we've hoped to get into the Eastern Sierras to view the fall foliage and since I bought my Canon it has been my goal to shoot photos of the foliage too. Finally last week we had our chance.

Tuesday after a quick dinner with my mom and a night at a rest stop just south of Bishop we made it up into the Sierra's by Wednesday mid-morning. We'd read about 2 different campgrounds that we wanted to check out. The 1^st near Sabrina Lake turned out to be closed for the season; the 2^nd, one with hookups, was so ugly we passed it up. Instead we went to Upper Intake 2, a small campground along a stream where we found a site tucked away in a corner.

After unhitching the 5^th wheel we took off for South Lake; we hiked out of South Lake once back into Duzy Basin where we met our middle boy, rendezvousing on a glacier. On the way to South Lake we saw groves of Aspen's changing colors and I started shooting my photos.

We thought that because we had gone back to the gym and working out we'd have no problem with hiking; we were wrong. Thursday found us huffing and puffing on the backpack trail to Piute Pass, stopping every few feet for water and raisins. We did find beautiful groves of Aspens which was what we went for. I shot photos to my hearts desire, well at least until I was really tired from carrying 10+ pounds of camera equipment and being out of shape. Needless to say the huffing and puffing was a little embarrassing when we ran into a group of 4 hikers who'd been on the road for 10 days, all of them older than Dale and I and just hiking along.

On our last day we went back to South Lake in the early morning light for some photos then back to North Lake for those photos. We'd also carried a bottle of Pipestone wine for some photos that we promised the winery. We ended up not only taking photos of the wine in the foliage but having a nice little picnic and a small glass of wine (for the photos of course).

We are now hoping to get back into the high country in about 2 weeks but that trip is iffy. In the meantime we are hitting the gym a little harder. No more out of shape for us; no letting some old guys hike circles around us in the high country!