Mid Sierra Musings: Courtright Reservoir 2018

Dale Matson

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Courtright 25mm Zeiss Batis

For the particulars on Courtright, I have included a link from my 2016 posting

http://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2016/07/dinkey-creek-area-and-courtright.html

So why write about Courtright Reservoir again? And again, as I have said about other multiple postings, “The mountains are never the same and I have used different cameras and lenses yearly.” This year I used my Sony A7R3, Zeiss Batis 135mm 2.8, Batis 25mm 2.0 and Sony 100-400mm GM. The sharp Sony 100-400 GM is the first native long lens for the Sony e-mount and better than the adapted Canon 400mm DO lens I used last year. The GM is great for wildlife when combined with the 1.4X TC.

I assigned a custom button on the camera to "crop" or APS-C mode which increases the image size. So, some images are about 35mm for the Batis 25, 200mm for the Batis 135 and 800mm for the 100-400 with 1.4X TC.

The Road to Courtright was opened again on May 25^th and these photos were taken soon thereafter. This year I went in the afternoon to optimize the light for photos looking east from the vista point above the reservoir. The vista point is before you actually descend to it. Because of this I didn’t stop at the McKinley Grove of Giant Sequoias along the way.

My time down by the reservoir was also shortened so I did not see any raptors to photograph this year. I believe there is at least one Bald Eagle and one Osprey nest near the lake. Last year I got shots of each bird.

Courtright is a beautiful place and in the summer, at about 8,000’, much cooler than my home town of Fresno. There are great places around the lake for camping, and fishing and a boat ramp too. The Maxon Trailhead across the dam is the beginning of hikes east into the Sierra and Kings Canyon National Park. Two hikes include Black Cap Basin and Red Mountain Basin. I have backpacked as far as Disappointment Lake and done a day hike from there to Hell For Sure Pass that overlooks Goddard Canyon in Kings Canyon.

https://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2016/08/courtright-to-red-mountain-basin.html

The water source for Courtright is Helms Creek but Courtright serves as both a reservoir and as a forebay for Wishon Reservoir downstream. During periods of low electricity demand, water is pumped back up to Courtright from Wishon. (The water source for Wishon Reservoir is the north fork of The King’s River. The Helms Project is one of the largest hydroelectric projects in the world.