Mammoth Lakes day 1 - Mono and June lake loop

Took an extended weekend trip up to Mammoth Lakes in the eastern sierras this past weekend with the JJ's and the Ito's to try and get some winter photos. We were there for 3 days so I decided to check out Mono Lake, Convict Lake, and Alkali Lake for both sunrise and sunset. The first night I headed out to the Mono south tufa area early to scope out some locations. Unfortunately it was really windy so you couldn't really see the tufa reflections in the water. I hung around and snapped a few anyway since I was going to come back the next morning for sunrise.



Headed back to the condo and we went to eat dinner at Roberto's. Still one of our favorite places in Mammoth. I had the carne asada burrito and J had the tamale. We all shared a fried ice cream. Baby Ito and Baby JJ had fun playing together.











I got to Mono the next day about 30 minutes before sunrise, and made my way down the south tufa trail towards the lake. There was little wind, but the sky was cloudless. As I walked down the path, I could see the Milky way and the entire sky filled with stars. Unfortunately by the time I got to the lake, the sun was rising and most of the visible stars were gone. I hung around for about an hour and snapped a few while the light was still good.










Since June lake loop was on the way home I checked out both June and Silver lake. I wanted to see if it was an area to come one night for sunset, but all of the lakes were mostly frozen over.


Frozen June Lake




Frozen Silver Lake

I figured Convict lake would be more interesting and possibly have some good compositions due to the ice and snow so I decided I was going to check it out next for sunset and sunrise. I'll update those on the next post.

Brandon Yoshizawa
B.A.Y | photography
Landscape and Wildlife photography
www.bay-photography.com