Click on the Mount Gibbs image to enlarge

Mount Gibbs

Mount Gibbs is a photograph taken on a summer evening in Yosemite National Park.

When I first got a digital camera (Nikon D100) I spent most of my summer weekends going up to Yosemite and the High Sierra to shoot landscapes of the mountains. My trusty Toyota Tacoma with a Four Wheel Camper was my weekend residence.

The goal was always to shoot during the magic hour around sunrise and sunset.

I would research on maps locations that I thought would make for good sunrise and sunset pictures.

One weekend the goal was a short hike up the Mono Pass trail off of the Tioga pass road, to photograph Mammoth Mountain not Mount Gibbs.

On previous day hikes I had spotted some small lakes that I thought would give a good reflection at sunset of Mammoth Mountain.

Being mid-July I knew the pesky mosquitoes would be vicious so a mosquito headnet came along and my body doused with heavy-duty amounts of mosquito repellent. I packed up the camera bag near sunset and did the short hike to my site that I had planned and envisioned my grand landscape picture. I got there, setup the tripod/camera and began to pre-visualize my picture of the wilderness.

The mosquitoes on that July evening were vicious. I thought I was ready with my headnet and repellent, and I was feeling confident that being a “veteran” of mosquitoes in Alaska I could easily endure any swarms of these tiny California mosquitoes.

WRONG!

The mosquito repellent had no effect and the headnet just meant I had swarms of mosquitoes buzzing around my head making it pretty impossible to concentrate on photography. So dejectedly I admitted defeat and surrendered to the mosquitoes. I packed up my gear and quickly retreated back to my truck as the sun started to get low in the horizon and create beautiful mountain light.

I decided I would just take a drive down the road and enjoy the sunset. So at the parking lot I made a left and started driving back down the hill towards Tuolumne Meadows.

Along the Tioga Road there is a pretty little lake that always gives a good reflection of Mount Gibbs. It is a very famous view of Mount Gibbs and I had stopped there many times. As I drove by the view of Mount Gibbs I just kind of glanced over my left shoulder to look at a view of the mountain. My jaw dropped as I saw what was developing in the beautiful alpenglow light. There were some clouds moving over the peak that were just starting to light up with alpenglow, I saw the potential of Mount Gibbs and clouds being bathed with beautiful alpenglow light. I slammed on the brakes, made a quick u-turn, parked the truck, grabbed the camera bag and tripod…and ran down to the lakeshore where Mount Gibbs and the clouds reflected off of the lake.

I setup the camera, pulled out my Singh Ray Galen Rowell split neutral density filters and began to photograph one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. The small lake was calm with no wind at all from the balmy evening conditions.

It was a perfect place at that moment…

While shooting I couldn’t help but think how those pesky mosquitoes had placed me at this spot at this particular time. How disappointed I was just a few minutes before.

I shot several sequences of pictures and this is one of my favorites, Mount Gibbs.