Huntington Lake
I've been going to Huntington
Lake for the past 25 years to
sail, ski and lately to do some biking, hiking and snowmobiling. It's the
best sailing lake I have ever seen. The wind blows 15-18kts from 10-5 most
everyday. It's at 7000' feet so the air is thin and the sun can be intense.
This summer has been terrible for pictures because of the smoke from the
fires. So most of the pictures here are from last winter.
On the way up to Nat & Jeri's I took a short side trip to see Rancheria
Falls from a distance. While hanging out at their cabin I finally got a Band-Tailed
Pigeon to hold still for a minute this summer. During this trip Nat and I
hiked up to his Geo-cache, just below College Rock, and the views were smoked
up but I thought this Sugar Pine's
pinecones made a good shot. Many thanks
to Andrea and Francey for identifying this pinecone.
Last winter we rode out to Red
Mountain on a cool clear day. It was the
day of lost and stuck. I was to far away to hear the conversation but it could
have gone like this; "Tell me again
why you came down here?" I'll
let you decide who said what to whom but be assured it was all in fun. Bald
Mountain was also in this area and it provided some fantastic views of the
San Joaquin Valley and Shaver
Lake from the lookout tower. Here is the three
of us on top of Bald Mountain. I wasn't really sure the timer on the camera
had gone off.
The next trip was to Mt. Tom and Brown Cone. From a turnout a few miles
up the road to Kaiser Peak you can see Huntington
Lake. We headed on up to
White Bark Vista Point before heading north. White Bark provides amazing views
of the High Sierras. This is Edison
Lake and just north of us from this viewpoint
we discovered enormous cairns that indicate that giants must pass this
way on their way north.
Afraid that the giants might return we headed off to Mt.
Tom and the San
Joaquin River canyon. We rode out to and around Brown Cone. I stopped to take
a pictures of Mt. Ritter, Fuller
Butte and Balloon Dome. I took another
of Ritter that was kind of a joke because along this trail it was hard to find
a clear view due to the trees. It has turned out to be one of my favorite
shots. While packing up the camera Nat came
bombing around the turn. As you
can see from the tracks we were the only riders up there since the last snow.
We headed back to Mt. Tom from here. From nearly on top of Mt. Tom there
were fantastic views of Fuller
Butte and Balloon Dome below us in the San
Joaquin drainage. What seemed to be just north of us you could see the backside
of the Minarets and Mammoth
Mountain. Checking the map when I got back home
they are less than 17 miles away from where I took those shots.
On the ride back it was getting late and the "fog" had come over
Huntington Lake.
