Pond Orange Sunset Light on Isosceles Peak

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Kings Canyon National Park, Fresno County
sunset Monday September 1, 1986, slide 86B_28-26
Olympus OM-4T, 24mm Zuiko
Drum scanned 35mm Kodachrome 64 to 100mb 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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On the Labor Day holiday of 1986 six of us group camped up on the smooth glaciated granite ridge just north of nearby Dusy Basin lake 11,388. That lake is just to the left of this pond. Mid afternoon we began climbing Columbine Peak via the erete from Knapsack Pass, the peak top of which is at this frame's right skyline edge. The class 3 climb was particularly enjoyable because of the airy route on either side of the erete, huge granite blocks along the ridge top, and the impressive views of the Palisade peaks here on the left side of the frame. At the top under mostly cloudy skies above our peaks, we even noticed a few snowflakes flutter down. On the way back to camp late afternoon, I lingered at this shallow frog pond, taking a cool refreshing dip amongst scurrying black tadpoles while noting where I might set up my tripod at sunset.

Back at camp we were all enjoying a relaxing evening dinner and conversation bundled up with warm clothing in the chilly air. I noticed the now low azimuth sun in the west was about to dip below the cloud deck that only covered the crest peaks. When it first began dropping under cloud edge I was not in the mood to bother grabbing my camera gear for a shot. But we quickly noticed how wild the light began illuminating our landscape so off I ran about 400 yards to this pond. The sun or moon cover about a one degree angle of the sky and takes about four minutes to move that one degree across the sky. By time I reached the pond, the shadows were quickly moving up the rocks behind this pond. Rapidly I set up and managed bracketing three quick frames before it was all so suddenly over as the sun went behind more clouds to the west. The first two frames were a bit overexposed. Alpenglow conditions occur either at sunrise or sunset when sunlight passes unblocked through long distances of the Earth's atmosphere.

All visible light wavelengths are absorbed by air molecules. However the atmosphere tends to filter out the shorter wavelength blue and green light more readily than longer yellow and red wavelengths. Here on Earth we are blessed the atmosphere is not significantly deeper than it is or the planet size much wider as it is just right for absorbing just enough sunrise/sunset light to provide this wonderful phenomenon. Just another coincidence? The more clear the air, the more such long wavelength light can pass through. Thus alpenglow tends to be more prominent at high alpine areas with their less dense molecular atmospheric pressure, water vapor, dust, and particulates. Additionally the most intensely saturated alpenglow conditions in these circumstances occurs when a thin even cloud layer covers the sky above the peak tops which then reflects light back down onto the landscape which would otherwise be wasted out into the upper atmosphere overhead. Of course the white granite of the High Sierra is an excellent rock for reflecting back those warm rays.

At the right edge is Mount Winchell, 13,775, then Thunderbolt Peak, 14,003, North Palisade 14,242, Isosceles Peak 12,321, and Columbine Peak 12,662 feet. It was only after I later got my developed film back that I noticed the fine geometric balance of illuminated areas left versus right which the reflecting pond water enhances top to bottom. One will note how the cloud shadow across North Palisade improves complementing the clean edge of the Columbine ridgeline. Also the unseen reflecting warm light above my position off cloud bottoms provided enough orange light to improve illumination of the shadowed landscape below. In other words on the more typical clear blue sky alpenglow conditions the film would have recorded darker in shadowed areas.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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