Lundy Canyon
After a late breakfast with the Lighthawks at Hays Street Cafe (another first for me) we decided to check out Lundy Canyon, which feeds into the Mono Basin at the north end of the Lake.
Lundy Canyon is one of those places, this time of year anyway, that's so photogenic that as long as you know how to use a camera -- any camera -- you'll probably get some attractive photos.
The drive up the canyon is mosty paved, but turns to dirt -- narrow dirt -- past the resort. It was surprisingly busy for a Friday...a lot of people seemed to be there specifically for photography of the fall color in this beautiful spot.
At the end of the road is a trailhead, and I think I got the last parking spot -- at least, the last spot big enough to fit a full-size truck without blocking the road. Wonder what it was like on Saturday!?
Beaver ponds are a major contributor to water-based photogenicity here...and then there were the yellow aspens, of course.
One kinda funny thing: At the Cafe that morning I made the statement that I'd gotten so many photos of fall color in Upper Summer Meadows (the mother lode of fall color in the area), that getting more yellow-dominated photos wasn't a priority for me.
Ummm...I guess I mispoke a bit...so once again I've edited my faves down to too many.
A very-well-constructed classic beaver dam:
The pond behind the classic beaver dam even has a classic domed beaver lodge out in the middle:
There's a very nice waterfall in the middle of this cascade of color:
Most of the aspen turn yellow, then brown, but a few develop a red color:
A quiet oxbow of the creek in the forest was covered with leaves:
So many leaves in this forest stream that they got jammed up:
We didn't go quite to the end of the canyon, but close enough...and we wanted to have lunch in a nice spot, so this was our turn-around/lunch spot:
Then we hiked out back to our rigs, enjoying the view looking down-canyon.
It was late-afternoon, and we needed to get over to the agreed spot on Green Creek where we planned to meet the ski3pins, and we wanted to be able to pick out the spot in daylight.