Twin Lakes 2.5 2020

Dale Matson

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

View At Potter Pass- Banner Ritter

         My first trip to Twin Lakes this year was about a month ago with my son. https://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2020/06/twin-lakes-and-potter-pass-2020-kaiser.html

         I had a chance to do this hike with my wife Sharon and our friend Carol. When we were at Potter Pass we noted that Mount Tom (the 9,000’ one) in the Sierra National Forest can be seen in the foreground from Potter Pass. I didn’t have a camera with a big enough lens. I was using the Sony RX100 M1. Two days later, I hiked up as far as Potter Pass again to try and get a photograph of the observation/fire tower on top of Mount Tom. I did get a recognizable version of the tower. Here is a story I wrote about the tower with photos here: https://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2017/08/sierra-national-forest-mount-tom-lookout.html

         Anyway, the ladies not only brought their swim suits, they swam all the way around the island at Upper Twin Lake. I didn’t swim.

         I also chatted with two dads and their young sons from Fresno who had spent the night and were heading to George Lake after filtering some water from the Lake. Years from now their sons will remember this and maybe the camping tradition will continue. Hi Gents!

         This second trip was dry, with no place to resupply filtered/treated water until reaching the lakes. Twin and George Lakes are popular with day hikers, fishermen and backpackers. On my final hike up to Potter Pass I saw some folks I knew and a lady who works at Horn Photo Supply. It is the only photo supply store in Fresno, so we kind of knew one another.

         This is my last hike before I head to Goddard Canyon in Kings Canyon. I’m a little nervous since this is about a 40 miles round trip backpacking experience out of Florence Lake. Hope things go well.  

 Carol

 Sharon

 Lower Twin Lake

 Upper Twin

 Swimming Around The Island

 Lower Twin Inbound

 Huntington Lake

 Telephoto Of Dam At Far End Of Huntington Lake

 Fire Tower On Mount Tom

          

  

Desert Bighorn Sheep East Of Bishop CA

Dale Matson

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

As difficult as Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep are to photograph, the Desert Bighorn are easy. They are almost tame. The day before my recent hike to Birch Lake, I decided to check out the desert sheep east of Bishop. Steve Yeager told me they had relatively new babies but I couldn’t see them. Steve told me the babies were hidden in the rocks.

I was set up for landscape shots for my hike to Birch Lake and my biggest lens was only an 85mm 1.8 Sony lens for my Sony A7R4. As luck would have it, that was plenty of lens for my shots. If they were SNBS 850mm would not have been big enough. I could shoot cropped and that gave me about 135mm. So, some of my photos are at 85mm and some are at 135mm.

The three ewes were active and I regret not shooting some video also. These are some of the sharpest sheep photographs I have ever gotten.