Our day started with a fun off-trail scramble up to the top of a saddle between Minaret Lake and Cecile Lake. From there it was talus hopping to the ridge above Iceberg Lake. Then a sketchy downhill talus and boulder-field traverse (made even sketchier by the cumbersome nature of our 45-pound packs) to the outlet of the lake. 1.5 hours to cover a half mile of terrain; oh yeah, that was interesting. But from the outlet of Iceberg onward we had it made: we met up with the trail again and had 12 easy miles of on-trail tramping to make it to our destination that night: Thousand Island Lake. Clouds built up all afternoon during the hike and by the time we had arrived at this scenic gem of a lake the sky was tantalizing, especially above beautiful Banner Peak. I dropped my pack at the first available campsite and went scampering down to the lake shore to shoot. When the sun dropped behind Banner Peak and the clouds lit up in this mackerel sky, it was the perfect end to a great high Sierra day.

Check out some behind the scenes video from just after this photo was taken:

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Visit this gallery to see more beautiful Sierra Nevada photos.

This photo was taken on my lone backpacking trip in the summer of 2013 before I severely injured my left big toe and was left unable to hike for months. The view from the summit of Island Pass is nothing short of fantasy-esque in its beauty. Even though I got to the pass around noon, I decided to wait and see if the July thunderstorms would build up as they had every other afternoon. Sure enough, at about 2pm huge cumulus clouds began forming over the Sierra crest. By 4pm hail was falling, and I retired to my tent for a nap. The storm broke at 5:30 and I whisked my camera out to this tarn to photography the clearing storm as it billowed and blew over Banner Peak.

View more spectacular Sierra Nevada photos here.

Taken in deep twilight at Mono Lake South Tufa on February 12th, 2014

I hate Manifest Destiny. The idea that American colonists were destined to expand across the west to conquer its lands and its resources makes me want to puke. Yet that idea drove much of our expansion across the continent over the past 150 years. And somehow, bizarrely, this concept that it is our right and provision as humans to exploit the land however we see fit is still shaping policy on a large scale today. Look at Canada, which just tragically opened up huge swaths of pristine Yukon wilderness to enormous mining concerns, dooming the lands there to a slow and hideous death.

The US, unfortunately, doesn’t have any prettier of a track record: what was once Owens Lake, a large lake just east of the Sierra, is now a vast, dusty plain thanks to the early 20th century water demands of Los Angeles. An endlessly thirsty city, LA extended its aqueduct in 1941 and began diverting water from the Mono Basin. Within four decades Mono Lake’s surface area had been reduced by almost 1/3 and a land bridge formed to Negit Island, making the tens of thousands of breeding seabirds and their chicks there easy prey for local carnivores like coyotes. Thankfully, some conservation-minded folks in the 70’s realized what was going on and were successful in the subsequent decades in enacting environmental protections for the Mono Basin. Since then the lake level has been slowly rising, though it’s still nowhere near its pre-1941 level.

This loss of water from Mono Lake is also what exposed the tufa towers that now make the place so famous for photography. Despite the wonderful photographic opportunities there, it’s a strange experience to walk past the historic lake level signs and realize that everything that makes the place so famous for photography should be under water. As I said goodnight to Mono Lake that night I was forced to reflect on the delicate balance between use, need, and exploitation of natural resources. What has me worried at the moment is the political power of water. I fear that as the California and western states drought stretches longer and deeper, thirsty cities like LA and San Francisco will begin to throw their weight around. As the Sierra snowpack dries out and the western reservoir levels drop, where will these cities slake their tremendous need for water? I’m sure the Mono Basin will once again come under scrutiny.

For the moment Mono Lake is protected. But will those protections stand up against the force of ten million people’s cry for water? I see that hypothetical crisis as a clear wake-up call that we need to rethink our resource-usage strategies in the west. I can only hope if push comes to shove in California’s on-going drought, that we can do the courageous thing and stop our short-sighted, unthinking exploitation of our natural resources so that we won’t have to permanently say goodnight to places like Mono Lake.