Welcome to Lundy Canyon, a photo from California, West

Photographer's Note

Peter Boehringer made a great recent post capturing the spirit of our recent TE Summit. This is the scenery the photographers were gaping at when he snapped his shot.

Now I know this is not exactly the Canadian Rockies, of which I am supremely jealous of, but at this time of year Lundy Canyon is a beautiful alpine location to wonder around and explore photographically. The winter snows are melting quickly, feeding the mountain streams, and creating numerous waterfalls. The waterfall in the lower frame is obvious but there are also two in more in the distance that are hard to see at this size.

In a normal year there would much more snow on the slopes of those mountains ahead. This winter's snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains was the lowest since 1990 or about 46% of normal.

The hike up the canyon basically heads towards those mountains in the distance. You could actually continue hiking up and over the mountains to the left and eventually reach some beautiful alpine lakes. Unfortunately, with time tight and many other places to shoot during our summit, we could only wonder a mile or two up the canyon.

One last thing to note about Lundy is that the forest you see ahead is mixed pine and aspen. The aspens will turn a bright golden yellow in Autumn making Lundy Canyon a great fall photo locale as well.

Regards,
Doug

robertosalguero, bakes888, edytungkal, jwmunro, pboehringer, cherryripe, plimrn, gunbud, lcarolan has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

robertosalguero (292) 2007-06-27 2:36

No need to be jealous, what you have in this picture is beautiful. I truly enjoy scenes like this one because they convey a sense of isolation and peace. We climb because we want to enjoy nature from a perspective not everyone can. Here you have a little valley with excellent views captured very well. The colours are very natural and the two waterfalls guide my eyes into the frame easily. I also notice some threadmill(aka nasty scree) on the sides of the mountains. Great job Doug.

Rob

bakes888 (18499) 2007-06-27 2:45

Hi Doug. Wonderful view. The lack of snow seems to be a common comment coming from your half of the world, it is certainly winter here though ;-(. Well composed with good colour. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers, Paul.

edytungkal (4551) 2007-06-27 3:20

Hello Doug,
Very wonderful perspective and well composed picture, supporting by the very well colours and sharpness. Well framing and usefull note.
tfs

best regards
daniel

jwmunro (286) 2007-06-27 10:09

Hello Doug -

Well done, I must assume that is the best any of us did given the lighting conditions. Gosh, I praying for a cloud to develop so we could get a decent image. Anyway, the smaller cascades where better images - I never did find a way to get closer to Lundy Falls. Well done!

Thank you for sharing.

John

pboehringer (770) 2007-06-27 10:11

Yes, Douglas, that was exactly the view that you were working on while I sneaked in to get the action shot. I was planning to post it today in the evenning too. My composition is slightly different and in vertical framing. What I really like to see in your shot are the shadows playing with the landscape.

Cormac (26565) 2007-06-27 10:26

Nice view of this spectacular place! The waterfall in the middle has a great setting, with the bowl of the valley rising up to big mountains on all sides. Interesting to hear that the snow pack is so low in the Sierra Nevada, because up in the Cascades and the Coast mountains the snow pack is 50% higher than normal. Thanks for sharing!

cherryripe (21033) 2007-06-27 12:34

Hi Douglas
Beautiful scenery and you were really lucky with the weather for your TE meet. The contrast between the green of the forest and the reddy greys of the mountains combined with the patches of snow is superb. The blue sky sets it off perfectly.
Regards
Nikki

plimrn (21344) 2007-06-30 12:28

Hi Doug,
I do like the way you've framed this big bowl in the mountain with the path of the river curving down to the falls. Well done!! Sorry we're such wimpy hikerts :-).
Have a good time in Ireland. HLJ, Pat

cdmonson (5304) 2007-06-30 14:17

Hi Douglas:

It's not the Canadian Rockies, you're right, but this is about as good as we get in the States. Excellent capture of a beautiful place. The mountains around this lovely valley/cirque here have a sweeping and enveloping feeling to them, which makes you feel like you're standing there looking at it. Excellent work.

Clark

gunbud (34066) 2007-07-01 18:26

Hi Doug,
Beautiful prestine valley surrounded by manificent snow capped peaks. Excellent lighting renders clear chrisp colors and stunning details to this excellent image. I love how the shadows help outline the V shape to the mountains.
Regards, Tom

lcarolan (930) 2007-07-15 7:16