Black Divide Reflection in Dusy Basin lake

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Kings Canyon National Park, Fresno County
mid morning Saturday September 6, 2003, slide 03W6-23
Pentax 67 AEII with 55-100 zoom, Gitzo G1325 Mk2
Drum scanned Fuji Provia 100F 220 film to 200mb RGB file
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 processed for accurate image fidelity
Lightjet5000 printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
signature bottom left

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The many lakes of Dusy Basin in Kings Canyon National Park are all unnamed. This is a small alpine lake above 11,000 feet in an above timberline zone of short scattered pines, turf, and granite. Waters flow west into the Middle Fork of the Kings River and eventually into California's huge San Joaquin Valley. About five miles distant mid right is dark rusty streaked metavolcanic rock of Black Divide with broad Black Giant at 13,330 feet the highest summit. Permanent snowfields cap its talus fans below steep east facing slopes. Center frame across the lake on a knoll are whitebark pines, pinus albicaulis. Peaking through some branches is Mount McDuffie at 13,282 feet. More whitebarks can be seen as small dark green spots on the flanks of a peak just left of center. Above the lakeshore are knee high dull green bushy willow. Turf across the lake and at foreground lower right has already lost most of its mid summer green drying to a September yellow. Several expanding rings can be seen breaking the water's surface where golden trout, salmo aquabonita, feed on floating insects.

A month earlier this scene would have also been colored by a sprinkling of wildflowers over the landscape. The foreground would likely have been under shallow water. Now with its small summer inflow stream reduced to a trickle, the lake's level has lowered a few inches leaving granite sand and mud.

Its appearance has a pocked appearance due to recent heavy thunderstorm raindrops. On the left edge one can make out three disintegrating footprints from someone's earlier barefoot summer wading in this remote beauty. The round lichen covered boulder at right across the lake shows the high water mark as a distinct line also reflecting in the water.

I had previously taken a fine 35mm Kodachrome here in 1982, which gave me reason to return again on this trip 21 years later. However the frame by necessity is rather different given the much larger 55x70mm film format. This was my second of three mornings I would spend in the basin on this five day solo backpack. I'd been hoping to get some good frames eastward to the impressive Palisades in afternoon light, but all three of my afternoons were too cloudy and or breezy. Such is the way of nature in mountains thus I fancy returning again some summer. Blocked by the Palisades, the sun rises late in the morning. Thus I rose slowly then in cool shadows spent an hour exploring before arriving at this locale. And it was here at this modest quiet pool that I found the best images of this trip.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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