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SF Bishop Creek Backpack 8/14
SF Bishop Creek Backpack 8/15
SF Bishop Creek Backpack 8/16
This is a continuation of the SF Bishop Creek Backpack trip on Friday afternoon, August 14.
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From a higher viewpoint above the northwest shore of Margaret Lake, a 5:08 pm view of the Mt Goode rock glacier. Traveling through areas with larger talus boulders is one of the more dangerous activities for a backpacker. Rated in climbing as a Class 2 effort, as one often uses hands monkeying through. More so if hefting a heavy pack. There are many acute angular rock edges one could fall against, even directly underfoot, which might bruise or worse break bones. Between boulders are often deep, shady gaps one will avoid falling into.
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With the late afternoon sun descending below the high peaks to the west, shadows caused us to move further east. I worked this northward subject of the stream at 5:33pm, just before the shadows reached me. By this point in the afternoon, the strong breezes had waned a bit, allowing a better reflection of Chocolate Peak. Our camp spot was well back in the pines at frame left.
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The above is an 85mm medium telephoto lens view at 5:55pm of 13297-foot Picture Puzzle Peak and 13893-foot Mt Agassiz that I had solo climbed its Class 2 talus slope route from Bishop Pass in August 1981.
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At 6:06pm, a 5-column 85mm lens stitch blend view of the top of Chocolate Peak in front of the Inconsolable Range. By this time of day, shadows from Hurd Peak were just below the bottom edge of the frame.
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My final image this day at 7:12pm, a 5-column stitch blend, using my 85mm lens, of 13525-foot Cloudripper in orange phase sunlight.
J's tent, pack, and fishing pole at our Margaret Creek area camp spot.
Saturday, August 15, 2026, was yet another breezy dawn that had me considering another move. I was up early, a bit after sunrise, and took a few Pixel 10 Pro photos of our camp area. This shows my tent placed behind wind-blocking pines.
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Willing to give the day a chance, I hiked up to Margaret Lake, where it was soon clear there was not going to be any calm conditions for reflection photos. So went back down to our stream area and, at 8:53am, worked on this image of the stream pond area near our camp. I continued with some weak subjects, but by 10am gave up. It was just going to be a repeat of breezy Friday, so went back to camp and discussed with J moving to Bull Lake, about 1.5 miles distance. That would provide some new areas to explore and cut our Sunday return trip distance in half. Thus, packed up gear and, by late morning, were on our route northward along the main Bishop Pass Trail. This was along the east side of Long Lake where we passed numbers of others coming, going, or camped at. Along the way, we did notice some rather large trout. To avoid the trail junction down then back up, we used the shorter route along the Bull Lake outlet instead of the trail.
After dropping our packs at the main shady camp zone, we looked around and then moved gear to an area off the trail up on a bench above the northeast end of the lake. Thus, made camp, cooked lunch, took a refreshing cleaning dip in the lake, and rested.
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Later in the afternoon, I walked around our zone exploring. Then, after 5pm was back at camp for my photo gear. The above 2-column, 2-row, 4-frame stitch-blend image of 9000 by 9200 pixels with my 85mm lens was the second subject I worked on, shot at 5:49pm. It provides an impressive north-to-south view of Chocolate Peak that forms a triangle against deep blue skies. The chocolate brown-hued rock looks impressive against the white limestone band. The whitebark pine forest on the north side of Chocolate Peak adds additional green color to the frame.
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A wider view using the Sigma 17-40mm DC ART lens shows the breeze was waning here at Bull Lake. It is generally in a less breezy location behind Chocolate Peak than nearby Long Lake in the center of the canyon. Bro J is peeking through the trees at the frame left shore edge. He was fishing shore spots.
This 6:23pm subject image VS00822-00837-4x1v at page top again shows Bull Lake, Cloudripper, and Chocolate Peak during the calmest moments this day would offer. At the time, J was at frame right in the shadows.
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Shadows soon overtook our location, so I pulled out my Sony 85mm lens and worked some more distant single shots of the peaks. The above at 7:09pm is a long 6-column stitch blend of the Inconsolable Range in warming yellow light.
And the above is a 1000 by 1000 pixel 100% pixels crop from VS00853-00859-6x1v.jpg of the rusty chute, showing the actual fine detail in the full 14300 by 5700 pixel image. An image; peakbaggers can readily imagine the fun of slowly climbing up. Note the Krummholz stunted form whitebark pines that fit into locations where, due to wind patterns, will be fully beneath snow.
On our last day of the trip, Sunday, August 16, 2026, we would not be leaving until after enjoying time to explore areas of Chocolate Peak. At sunrise, I captured mediocre orange light on Thompson Ridge reflecting in the slightly calm Bull Lake. Then we packed up gear and drank some hot chocolate as we waited for sunshine to reach this Bull Lake zone before starting our last adventure. Thus, early in the morning, we began hiking up the trail, then veered off the trail to an overlook of Bull Lake.
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I carefully set up at the knee of an overlook at about 11k of Bull Lake at 10780 feet for the above westward 4-column stitch-blend image at 8:32am, with Thompson Ridge in the background left while the ridge east of the Tyee Lakes that I climbed up to last summer is at frame right.
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I climbed up to about 11.1k for wider views. The above north-northwest down-canyon view at 8:43am with my 85mm medium telephoto shows the ridge east of Tyee Lakes with 13652-foot Mt Tom in the distance.
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Another westward zoomed view at 31.5mm to the northwest at 9:06am with Bull Lake, Thompson Ridge, and Mt Tom, with the unusual metamorphic rock scree of Chocolate Peak in the foreground. At frame right, 13986-foot Mt Humphreys is slightly poking up above a ridge.
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A 9:46am westward view from the trail above Bull Lake with Thompson Ridge in the background and a large patch of Sierra willow along the lake's inlet edge shoreline.
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At 9:57am, I unexpectedly worked the last image of our trip as a group of 5 female mallard ducks, Anas platyrhynchos, swam by along the Bull Lake edge. I fired off a few Focus Bracket shots, with this one working best.
Above is a Pixel 10 Pro view of J with his backpack on the trail, not far from below Bull Lake. Our hike carrying packs back to the trailhead was mostly all downhill, which we traveled with fewer stops than our hike in. It was late morning when we arrived, then moved gear into my vehicle. We looked to stop at Lee Vining for some hot food, but lines were huge. Since we had extra food in our packs and a bit in my car, we didn't stop along the way for any food but did stop to fill our water bottles with fresh, clean water off talus along SR120 at the 8350 elevation.
Upon post-processing, I found our trip moderately productive with a few strong images. However, the storms the first 3 days and then strong winds limited the kind of subjects I was able to work. In any case, it was another exciting adventure we much enjoyed, with our bodies stronger for the effort. There is certainly plenty of strong subjects I am likely to return for in the area in this next decade and may even return to Dusy Basin again, which I last visited in 2016.
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2026 Trip Chronicles: Contents
