1000 Island Lake Curving Shore Reflection of Banner Peak

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Ansel Adams Wilderness, Inyo National Forest, Madera County
early morning August 14, 1987 slide 87A_17-13
Olympus OM-4T
Drum scanned 35mm Kodachrome 64 to 100mb RGB file
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 processed for accurate image fidelity
Lightjet5000 printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
signature lower left lake edge

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On a blue sky morning with a partial Moon, Thousand Island Lake's curving turfy shoreline complimented with a use trail, sprinkled with light magenta hued alpine aster, aster alpigenus, reddish hued Peirson's paintbrush aka Indian paintbrush, castilleja peirsonii, magenta hued Lemmon's paintbrush, castilleja lemmonii, and yellowish hued monkeyflower, mimulus tilingii, reflects in its quiet waters 12,936 foot Banner Peak with part of 13,143 foot Mount Ritter behind on left.

From this orientation, the two peaks complement each other to produce a single symmetry. If one looks closely from Banners's high summit, the left side falls away sharply cutting across the chuted east face of Ritter whose highest summit is blocked in this view. Geology of these dark peaks is not the usual Sierra granite but rather ancient Jurassic Period metavolcanic. Immense and deep glaciers during several glacial epochs, with the last ending about 10,000 years ago, ground and scoured the rock into these smooth shapes. 1987 was in the middle of California's 6-year drought. Most of the snowfields below the peaks at this time of year are permanent small remnant glaciers from colder periods during the last millennium.

This is one of the High Sierra's largest alpine lakes. It is at the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River at 9,832 feet above sea level. Around the curving shore, adding to the reflection is a larger patch of Peirson's paintbrush and a group of willow, salix.

Two of the many islands can be seen across the lake covered with stunted forests of mountain hemlock, tsuga mertensiana. The island forests are stunted because wintertime storm gales blow unimpeded across its flat 1.5 mile long half-mile wide surface breaking off branches that stick much above its several foot deep winter snow pack. Also on the flanks of the dark green forested ridge are whitebark pine, pinus albicaulis, which are the Sierra Nevada's most dominant high elevation conifer. If one looks carefully below Banner's snowfields, one can make out some subtle green patches. Those are also whitebark pine that have taken the common krumholtz stunted form. Any tree limbs that stick out above the snow pack on such steep slopes get knocked off by snow avalanches or storm winds. At the water line near the paintbrush patch is also a light yellow green band. That is from pine pollen, mainly whitebark, which has landed on the lake surface and concentrated along the shoreline.

The world-class scenery of the Ritter Range that is just south of Yosemite National Park was at the park's formation blocked by mining interests from inclusion. This view, certainly one of the most famous in the Sierra is about 7 miles and 2,000 feet uphill trail hiking from the Devils Postpile road at Agnew Meadows. A bit after the shot, in this same cove, I cast out a dry fly and landed the real residents of this lake, a 12-inch rainbow trout.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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