Category: California

No Lack of Color

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One of the things one can do in early Spring in California is to go to Lassen Volcanic Park when the crowds are not there yet but the snow is gone so far that one can actually get into the park. This is place of stark contrast. There is a steep and rocky hike up Mount Lassen which offers nice views, for instance to lonely Mount Shasta.Lassen 12

At lower evaluations you can hike thorough lush forests to what I consider the most stunning part of the park, the Painted Dunes and Cinder Cone area.

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The landscape transforms within minutes into something that borders on abstract art.

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This is a pretty remote area of the park, in particular when the access roads are still closed in winter. Mayhem can happen quickly.

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These pictures are now 25 years old. At some point I will need to check out how it looks today. 

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Mono Lake

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Now that it is cold and gray outside, I like to travel a little back in time to pre-digital places. In 1993/94, while in California, I was at least three times at the iconic Mono Lake, that Mark Twain describes in his Roughing It as “one of the strangest freaks of Nature”.

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Even though the water is extremely salty, some shrimp species seem to like it (Artemia monica, the Mono Lake Brine Shrimp…), and are in turn being liked by migratory birds.Berkeley588

I, in turn, found the Tufa rocks most fascinating. That they are visible and not underwater (where they originate) is a side effect of Los Angeles diverting water from the lake. 

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That was still ongoing in 1993, but since 1994, after long legal battles, Mono Lake won and is now allowed to retain its water. So maybe the images here show Mono at a historic low.

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In any case, this feels like home to me.

Joshua Tree

Most people of my generation are familiar with the Joshua tree because of the 1987 album by the band U2. I have been thrilled to hear that they will be on a Joshua Tree tour this year, again.

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When I visited Joshua Tree National Park in January 1994 for the first time, I became quickly obsessed with finding the most photogenic specimen.

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And there are thousands of them, all lamenting the state of the planet, it seems.

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They are interesting plants – not trees, actually, but yuccas. Being able to spread through seeds or rhizomes, sprouting from their extensive root system, makes them well adapted to desert climate. Otherwise they are not particularly useful, which is probably the reason why they are still around.

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Besides admiring the Joshua trees, there are other things one can do in the park. I, for instance, had liberated a cactus that was held in captivity in a store in Berkeley, and planted it in the desert.

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We had ideals back then.

Storm Watching (Point Reyes II)

My second visit to Point Reyes National Seashore was later in 1993, when the weather forecast promised high coastal winds, and Bryce suggested to go storm watching.

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Above we are on our way to the Lighthouse, and below are the first storm clouds.

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It got a little bit more dramatic,

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but we stayed dry and took pretty silhouette pictures.

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At the end, the colors returned.

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Gourmet Trip 1993 (Point Reyes I)

My first visit to Point Reyes National Seashore was on the occasion of the CHAOS Fall Gourmet Trip 1993. The rules for these trips are simple: Dress up and bring good food.

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On the way to the camp site you were also supposed to help carry supplementary items like pieces of a portable hot tub.

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After pitching the tents and admiring each other’s costumes, more serious activities would commence.

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There were also opportunities to hunt for more food.

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Which was obviously rather tasty.

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Russian River Valley (Wine Biking I)

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One of the must-sees for tourists in California is Napa. To be honest, the wines are overpriced, and the landscape is underwhelming. Go a bit further north, to the Russian River Valley, and enjoy the scenery by bike.

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You will know that your are doing this with the right sort of people when they cross the river like this

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even though there is a bridge and they didn’t have any wine (yet).

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The winemakers were friendly and let us taste for free even though they knew we would not buy much wine.

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Death Valley 1993

“What do you call the desert out yonder?” McTeague’s eyes wandered over the illimitable stretch of alkali that stretched out forever and forever to the east, to the north, and to the south.
“That,” said Cribbens, “that’s Death Valley.”

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Backpacking in Death Valley seems like an odd idea, but it’s not so bad, if you pick the right time of the year, and the right people. I did so with members of the California Hiking and Outdoor Society (CHAOS) in December 1993.

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The daytime temperatures were quite pleasant, but at night they would drop below freezing. So we had to pack warm gear, and in addition 2 gallons of water each. So I was bit worried about the weight of my camera, but I decided to pack it and to leave the bottle of wine at home instead.

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One of the new people was Tuan, who had brought his large format camera (in addition to an SLR with several lenses).
I asked him politely whether this wouldn’t be too much to carry, and he responded equally politely that this would not be a problem.

I learned later that Tuan had worked as a mountain tour guide in the Alps, was an experienced ice climber, had climbed Denali (and many other peaks), and was in the process of documenting all National Parks of the US in large format. Tuan also taught me to value the 24mm and 85mm focal lengths for landscape photography. One certainly met interesting people at CHAOS.

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So in many ways this trip had been an eye opener for me, for landscape, for people, and for photography.

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Incomplete

Honoré de Balzac’s short story Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu has as a theme the desperation of the artist Frenhofer over
his disability to complete his masterpiece.

It is an early paradigm for fragmental art where not the completed work is the objective but the fragment deliberately left incomplete.

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Why do we give up and turn back? This can be because of lack of skills or imminent danger, and it is a sane thing to do.
But it can also be because we reach a point that we realize we should not touch, we reach a realm that is not ours.

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This happened to me on a long weekend hike on McGee trail in the John Muir Wilderness in the eastern Sierras, in the early summer of 1994.

The trail leads at the beginning through lush meadows, but one quickly gains altitude, and the colored mountains like Mount Baldwin here become predominant. It is a magic landscape, both remote and imposing.

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With McGee Lake, nestled below Mount Crocker and Red and White Mountain, we have reached our destination. The vegetation has receded, and being exposed like this makes us restless. After a short break and swim, we scramble on.

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From Hopkins Pass, the view opens up into even more remote regions of the eastern Sierras. The message is clear and double edged: This is utterly beautiful, but we do not belong here. Humbled, we turn back.

Journey

When discussing the options for traveling with a three weeks old baby from California to Indiana, friend Bryce reminded me that while today we view traveling as the unavoidable side effect when to get from A to B, there used to be a more conscious form of travel that one can metaphorize as a journey. Thrilled, we decided to take this trip by train. The idea was to spend two nights in a sleeper car, and the days sightseeing.

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The comfort is minimal, but so are the demands of a three week old.

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California becomes Nevada. Notice the difference in architecture and functionality (railway station vs. correctional facility).

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Nevada becomes Utah and Colorado.

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Then, in Iowa, when we start feeling the heat and humidity of summer in the midwest, the power of all passenger cars fail. For hours, the Amtrak personal shuffles the cars in order to put the one with the faulty cable at the end. In vain.

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When we arrive in Chicago 8 hours late in the third night, Amtrak pays for a hotel with view.

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We have arrived! Moral: Each journey should result in a story.