Fall colors, Eastern Sierra, CA

The Eastern Sierra is a spectacular place to view fall colors. Actually even outside the fall the region is a sight to behold with beautiful mountains, lakes and grand vistas everywhere.

I got a chance to do a 3 day trip to the eastern Sierras with my friends. We stayed in Lee Vining and explored all the nearby places from our base. We headed out Friday evening, it took about five hours of driving to drive from South Bay , through Yosemite to Lee Vining.

Early next morning we were up before sunrise and headed out to the South Tufa area on Mono Lake. This is one of the best places to photograph the Tufa formations on Mono Lake. As expected it was very popular and the place was crawling with photographers and it was hard to even find a spot to put in my tripod. On top of this it was bitterly cold. Overall I concluded that it's not a good idea to shoot at this place on a weekend - it's too popular for its own good. I returned to the spot on Monday, there was only one person :)

The sunrise colors were very subtle, which is good in its own way. We also took the opportunity to scout the area. I realized that some of the better Tufa formations are further down the trail. Next time I can go straight down the trail and avoid the crowds which were mostly concentrated at the first spot along the trail.

After shooting sunrise we started to explore the area. We drove a little south and explorer the June Lake area. This is a beautiful town on the banks of an alpine lake. We stopped in the town and grabbed breakfast. Once the snow arrives this area will be really picturesque in the snow. The fall colors were in pockets, small beautiful pockets along the lake.

The next day we moved North and explored the Lundy lake area. We parked in the earthen dam area and did a small hike in the area. Here also there were pockets of beautiful Aspens, shimmering yellow in the sun. We continued to explore further north and drove to Conway Summit. The fall colors were patchy here as well, I was hoping for large vistas a.k.a Colorado style but it was not to be. After this we explored the Virginia lakes area which was fairly similar to the Lundy lake area.

The eastern Sierras have great potential for photography, especially in the fall and I would love to explore further!