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Leif standing at a popular photo spot in Alabama Hills, a campground / rock formation near Lone Pine. Mt Whitney is in the background  

Alabama Hills - now on my bucket list to come back and camp tucked behind these huge rocks.  

Glad I carpooled up with Leif, he's a great photographer and was the inspiration to take dirt roads around the valley to find this spot.  

It was the weekend of Kevin Tsuchiya's bachelor party up in June Lake. That's north past Mammoth lakes in the Sierra National forest, just east of Yosemite National Park. We drove up Friday and stopped at Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, in the valley between Kings Canykn to the west and Inyo National Forest to the east. I was happy to have an excuse to drive my truck on bumpy dirt roads just for the hunt to find a spot to take photos. An unseasonable cold front was happening during the last couple days leaving snow on all the mountains and also meant that it would begin snowing just as we were arriving in the little town on June Lake. Fortunately the snow wasn't sticking on the ground so we made there without problems. I slept in my truck bed both nights and it would get into the low-mid-20s. Saturday we fished along the Owens River where dirt roads lead to dirt parking lots, you park and walk through the bogs to find a spot away from other serious flyfishers. It felt like a completely different world and lifestyle than I'm ever exposed to so it was a great change of pace.  

Kevin scoping for the best fishing potential in the Owens River

Kevin using a new fly fishing rod along the small river  

Ian let us all crash at his family's June Lake cabin, taught people how to flyfish and shoot his guns - legend. View of and from our fishing setup. Arty played the biggest part planning the whole weekend 

Along the Owens River shooting north towards Mt Gibbs  

A stop at a makeshift shooting range on the way to June Lake in the late afternoon. It's a different world out here, you drive down a dirt road for a mile and there's just trash to shoot at in front of a hill - that's the shooting range. Temps dropped about 20 degrees as soon as the sun was behind the mountains  

I finally got a chance to shoot real starlight.  

It was a learning experience, I need to make sure to use a remote shutter and not shake the camera while it's open for a 30 second exposure. 

Taken from the cabins balcony. It was so cold I would stand out there until my hands hurt, warm up inside, go back outside and try again