Owens Peak Wilderness Peak 5212

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Owens Peak Wilderness, Inyo County
mid morning Saturday, March 22, 2003, slide 03G1-5
Pentax 67 AEII with 55-100mm, Benbo Trekker
Drum scanned Fuji Provia 100F 220 film to 200mb RGB file
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 processed for accurate image fidelity
Lightjet5000 printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
signature bottom left

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Friend Doug and I had been watching internet reports of a fine early wildflower season in the Kern area. Supposedly this renowned spring wildflower area was already past peak so we did not expect to make a visit. Upon rising from our roadside camp at sunrise, we made a brief road tour of the Lake Isabella reservoir area. We decided the landscapes were already too dry and instead of lingering drove east over Walker Pass and north to this area. It is a quite long drive from the SF Bay Area, thus I had never previously visited this area. Owens Peak Wilderness is in semi-desert BLM land about 2 miles north of the junction of SR14 and SR178 at the far southeast edge of the Sierra Nevada. We drove along an aqueduct maintenance road then stopped at the bottom of this minor canyon since we could see yellow color above.

An obvious use path up the central wash showed footprints so up we ventured on this east to west trending canyon. We were nicely surprised by a good density of wildflowers although the area's green grasses had already browned. Varieties of spring wildflowers often bloom in an area in succession so although some species may be past peak, others may just be coming out. From the mouth of the wash I noticed this mountain, topographic peak elevation 5,212 feet, had a nice pyramidal profile. It is actually just the end of an elongated ridge. Walking up the wash, I could see some nice masses of flowers above on the south facing slopes.

After maybe a half mile of walking up the wash, I also noticed how the profile of peak 5,212 changed to a less aesthetic sideways ridge view. Thus I climbed a ways above up the steep south slopes and traversed back towards the head of the canyon.

At the point of this image, the peak had a better profile. There was also a subtle knee in the canyon wall which still allowed a nice view down below into the canyon. Further east as the mouth of the canyon broadened, the views down into the canyon decrease. Thus I explored this small zone for the best foreground wildflowers.

Quite an array of desert wildflowers in the foreground: large yellow composite family California coreopsis, coreopsis californica, light yellow and white hued composite, desert dandelion, malocothrix glabrata, a few small pale violet hued Davy gilia, gilia lantiflora ssp. davyi, white with some purple hued evening snow, linanthus dichotomus, bushy purple hued lacy phacelia, phacelia cryptantha, tiny belly flower magenta hued purple mat, nama demissum, and one orange hued Califonia poppy, eschscholtzia californica. In the background painting peak 4,083 yellow are more Coreopsis. The evening snow which are pollinated by night moths, open late afternoon and close when the sun shines on them. Here they are mostly closed, otherwise the foreground would be a sea of white.

It was an absolutely crystal clear morning which is common after air pollution clearing spring storms. Thus given the very dry desert air we had a beautifully saturated deep blue sky above. An intermittent breeze was growing when I took this shot. Friend Doug in white hat, dark shirt, with his tripod is a discernable speck next to a Joshua tree directly below the top of 5,212 way down in the lower canyon. Later in the increasingly windy day we drove south to also visit Jawbone Canyon. But this surprise shot was easily my best image of the trip.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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