Aspen Surprise

This week, I am off Monday for the Columbus Day holiday and this week is my scheduled off Friday. Therefore, I decided to take the entire week off. I decided to take a drive up US Rte. 395 along the Eastern Sierras for my first visit this far north, along the 395.

Now, after seeing all the aspen photos on the photo forums this autumn and years past, I finally decided to join the fun and see it for myself, and of course, take a "few' pics...here and there. So why is this blog entry an "Aspen Surprise?"

Well, I hadn't really began my hunt for the aspens quite yet. That's why. I saw that the color was pretty much late in many areas this fall and the few areas that did have color, were overrun with photographers. Therefore, I was putting off the "aspen hunt" for a few days, to give the aspen leaves a few more days to become more yellow. Right now, I have seen a lot of green aspen leaves mixed with some yellow. But, I had hardly seen much of the yellow-vivid orange aspens. Only sparse amounts, which weren't worth the effort.

So, on my first full day up here, I decided to do Mono Lake for sunrise and then head over to Bodie State Historic Park and spend the day there and then head into Yosemite National Park, and perhaps do sunset at Olmsted Point. Well, that was the plan and I was able to do most of it, except Olmsted Point.

The day started out clear, of course, for our sunrise, no clouds in sight and no pastel hues right before sunrise. So it was just an average sunrise at Mono Lake this morning. Of course, after that, the clouds started appearing. Now, it made for a great day of photography. Puffy white clouds sprinkling the sky and giving spotty sun lights and some diffuse light, as well. The sky was not boring. So I figured that sunset was going to be great and with the clouds, I thought, Olmsted Point would be a great place to be for it, with the dynamic sky.

So, I started driving up Tioga Pass (rte 120 heading into Yosemite). As I am driving, I am about 5 miles from the entrance booth, when I spot this brilliant aspen grove off to my side and pulled the car off the side of the road abruptly. The aspens were backlit and really popping. Not 5 minutes there, the gray clouds moved in and the rains came shortly after that. But, what it did do was diffuse the entire scene and the colors were vibrant, since the sun was not washing them out.

Therefore, the surprise was of all the places where the aspen color was still green, the one hot spot was heading into Yosemite, which is definitely not known for it's fall aspen foliage. An aspen surprise, to say the least.