Beasore meadows Sierra Mountains

From a hill near my home.

It's difficult to spend the effort to post here when so few read this blog but I still think the media holds merit. So here is another photography post mainly because most of my creative efforts have been with photography.

A week ago I joined a local plein air painting group on a trip to Beasore meadows in the Sierra Mountains. Being summer here in California we rarely get many clouds but this particular day started off with a great cloudy sunrise. Being summer we didn't expect it to rain but wouldn't you know the one day we plan to paint outside it does?

The group consisted of 7 women and me. I thought for sure they would call it off but we all kept thinking the drizzle would let up and make for perfect conditions. So we made the long trek up into the high country.

This is an area I'm not that familiar with and was looking forward to seeing it. Our guide knew the area quite well and took us to a beautiful secluded meadow hidden behind tall trees. The trail had been blocked by a few fallen trees but it was a short hike that led us to a gate then to an wooden observation deck. I have to say I was quite surprised to see this nice of a deck in such a secluded spot. There were lots of purple asters, and various other wild flowers like the almost done lupine you see here. Since it was still drizzling we decided to venture on to another spot she had picked out and hope the rain would stop.


 The new location had beautiful granite rock formations in the middle of the meadow but the flowers were mostly done. Still it was quite beautiful with the various shades of drying grasses and plants. We walked around for a bit and decided to head over to the Jones store hoping for some cover from the rain. Realizing I had left my new tripod back at the other location our guide drove me back while the others set to paint the classic old buildings around the Jones store.

 I tried doing a water color of the scene with the old gas pump while sitting under a tree but tiny drops kept hitting the paper making in difficult to have any sort of control. Most of us gave up sketching and brought out our cameras. The place was next to a beautiful meadow so I set about mostly photographing flowers. There was quite a variety even for the extremely dry year we've been having.

One of the YWA members has a small cabin up here and invited us all over for hamburgers. Each of us had also brought a side dish. It was a whole lot of food, but the rained stopped just in time for us to eat outside under the trees near a trout filled creek.

I promised myself I'd come back soon so I could explore the area on my own. A week later that is exactly what I did. I'll share some of that trip in my next post.

Fire and Flowers

The road to Glacier Point

Back on the 7th of August we had a lightening storm roll in that started a fire in Yosemite. Four days latter I had a private to give a couple ladies from Texas.  On the way to show them Glacier Point's amazing views we were stopped by NPS as we waited for them to clear the road for us.

The fire was burning all the under brush between the Chinquapin turn off and Badger Pass ski resort. This we're told is a good necessary thing but try telling that to the tourists on vacation.

I knew Nancy would probably get some dramatic pics from this so the next morning after sleeping on a not so comfortable couch we went back out to see what we could catch of the fire and the flowers we didn't have time for the previous day. 

 

Brewer's Angelica possibly Sierra Angelica

The fire work crews wouldn't let us stop where the fire was really raging so we left to go photograph the Cone flowers and Lupine we saw near Crane Flat. There's only so much smoke you want to breath as well.  Fortunately the smoke hadn't effected the meadows there and we were rewarded with some great flower pics.  The first one I saw was a group of Brewers Angelica shooting out their flower orbs like nature's fireworks.

This little meadow was surrounded by cedars and ponderosa pines. While focusing on some cone flowers we were rewarded with a visit from the Monarch royalty.

This was the first time I'd seen a one of  these actually staying on one flower long enough to get some decent pics.

We kept hoping it would open it's wings but it was to busy working it's way around the cone to listen to our advice.

Fortunately it came back to another cone with more lupine in the background. It was hard to live all this behind but I had to get back home to pack for a trip to visit my mom.

Sadly the trip to mom's was not so good. The demtia of Alzheimer's is taking over and she kicked me out of her home after less than a day. It was a long bus ride home. .

 

Nancy

Maybe it was having such a great week in the park that made my mom's hate toward me hurt more. People tell me it's just the disease but it still hurts.  I don't want to close this on a negative note. There was one other colorful creature I saw enjoying the flowers that day. This pic gives you and idea of just how high and thick this meadow was with flowers. She is standing shoulder deep in wild flowers.

Life has it's difficulties but it also has it's rewards.  Fortunately the rewards still out number the bad times.