Giraud Peak Reflection in Dusy Basin lake

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Kings Canyon National Park, Fresno County
mid morning Saturday September 6, 2003, slide 03W6-27
Pentax 67 AEII with 55-100 zoom, Gitzo G1325 Mk2
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 right

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The many lakes of Dusy Basin in Kings Canyon National Park are all unnamed. This is a small alpine lake above 11,000 feet in an above timberline zone of short scattered pines, turf, and granite. Its cool waters flow west into the Middle Fork of the Kings River and eventually into California's huge San Joaquin Valley. Across the lake are a few scattered whitebark pines, pinus albicaulis and willow. Note the large boulder at center frame with a clump of willow on its left side. Just below in the lake is an expanding ring where a golden trout, salmo aquabonita, is feeding on floating insects. Also a bit right of center in the foreground is another trout caught by my camera shutter at the moment it pushed to the lake's surface causing a bump. In the lower right corner, shallow water over warmer sun warmed mud, shows several dark figures of tadpoles resting on the bottom where they feed on algae. Currently there is some controversy by some botanists, that trout eat tadpoles in alpine lakes leaving them eliminating frogs. In at least some lakes I have seen such is not the case. Frequently there are near shore areas too shallow or reedy to access. Turf across the lake and at foreground lower right has already lost most of its mid summer green drying to a September yellow.

The northern exposures of Giraud Peak at 12,608, cuts into the blue skyline at frame right. Note the small permanent snowfields below the cliff like ridge mid left frame. Winds in storm systems over the Sierra tend to blow from the south to southwest. In winter, that causes northern lee slopes of high alpine ridges to build up deep snow. The snow exerts weight which together with avalanches and rock frost crack wedging, tends to quarry rock off northern aspects making them steep.

Note the talus fields of debris below those cliffs. Also below the shadowed cliff one can make out the crumbling face of a small rock glacier common in this area of the Palisade Crest. This landscape is totally granite geology. It formed in the Mesozoic Era deep below the earth out of molten continental edge debris as North America pushed west over the subducting Pacific Plate. At that time of dinosaurs, the continental edge was to the east in Nevada with the Pacific Ocean above. Tectonic forces slowly pushed up enormous masses of hardened granite plutons through overlying rock strata until those overlying rocks eroded away leaving the dominant present day Sierra Nevada granite landscapes. During the geologically recent period there have been a number of glacial periods, the last melting back about 10,000 years ago. The glaciers formed huge ice caps atop the range, sometimes thousands of feet deep. As the ice moved, it carried along loose rock which acted as immense grit scouring the hard granite rock. Across the lake some of that smooth bedrock is visible.

A month earlier this scene would have also been colored by a sprinkling of wildflowers over the landscape. Note the leaves from an alpine shooting star plant at frame lower left. The foreground would likely have been under shallow water. Now with its small summer inflow stream reduced to a trickle, the lake's level has lowered a few inches leaving granite sand and mud. Its appearance has a pocked appearance due to recent heavy thunderstorm raindrops. On the left edge one can make out three disintegrating footprints from someone's earlier barefoot summer wading in this remote beauty. I'm sure they must love this place too just as I.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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