Curtain Lake Reflection of Foxtail Pines & Kaweah Peaks Ridge

---

Sequoia National Park, Tulare County
mid morning Wednesday July 13, 1994, slide 94C_5-6
Olympus OM-4T, Benbo Trekker
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 left

---

A great many of the thousands of lakes of the High Sierra alpine areas do not have official names. Some of those lakes are sizeable though most are small. Thus when visiting the high country, one ought not expect that lakes without names are boring or lack aesthetics. Quite to the contrary many are exceptionally scenic as this one. Veteran Sierra cross-country travelers regularly seek them out as they often provide a more pristine wilderness experience. Since I have taken the picture, I'll also give it a name, Curtain Lake. Ah why such a name? Well it relates to a landscape feature visible from the lake but not from this viewpoint. We camped here two nights thoroughly enjoying our stay.

At an elevation well above 11,000 feet magnificent wind shaped foxtail pines, pinus balfouriana, inhabit the granite-glaciated shores of this lake on the Great Western Divide. At center in the distance, ancient metavolcanic Kaweah Peaks Ridge appears blue as morning sunlight is absorbed by air molecules in the intervening backlit atmosphere.

The sunlit peak top of 13640+ foot Black Kaweah is at left and Red Kaweah right. Note fallen trunks of deceased pine folk in the lake edge shadows at right enjoying fine locales to watch the nightly Universe.

Friend Doug and I on a backpack out of Mineral King found this lake on an out of the way ridge well away from any trails. As photographers, we often roam obscure terrain that no one else would have a reason to. On this fine morning I roamed the slopes looking for interesting trees. Noticing a short period of calm, I dropped down to the lake then traveled along its shores enjoying the ever-changing reflection till stopping at this area to take the shot. I moved to the point where the trees at right silhouetted against the sky then centered the image on the distant peaks.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

return to home page