Nevada Sightems (1987)

Hotel (Elko) - Nevada  1987

Hills, Clouds - Nevada  1987

Last of the 1987 scans . . . for now.

Piano - South Dakota (1987)

Piano - South Dakota 1987

We were in South Dakota to visit my grandparents in Aberdeen, staying at a motel in the vicinity. By that time they had moved out of their house to a smaller senior apartment.

So this photo had to have been taken in a relative's house. Alas, I don't have the slightest memory of the place. Oh well . . . although I don't think I ever made a print of the negative, the photo is actually kind of cool.

Motel - Idaho

Motel - Idaho  1987

Motel - Idaho  1987

Cafe attached to our Twin Falls motel, I think. Interesting.

Firehole Falls

Firehole Falls (Yellowstone NP) - Wyoming  1987

On the same roll of film as last week's Little Bighorn photo.

I knew that the photo was taken in Yellowstone, but I thought that it was one of the Yellowstone Falls, upper or lower. But no, uploading the photo to Google got the correct name and location.

Little Bighorn Battle Anniversary

Little Bighorn Battlefield - Wyoming  1987

"Almost 150 years ago, Sitting Bull’s followers defeated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, one of the most closely studied and hotly debated military clashes in American history. Sitting Bull is said to have had a vision that presaged a great victory, which came weeks later for warriors led by Crazy Horse." (NYT)

Photo taken during a trip to South Dakota with my parents in 1987. I used a Mamiya twin-lens medium format camera.

Shawna's Birthday!

Shawna & Mike (Photo by Hali) - Sierra Nevada  1980

Wow!

So, we were originally camping over in Death Valley, but it got way too hot. So we drove over the mountains to a campsite higher up in Owens Valley. Much cooler!

BTW, those mountains have been the subject of a prior blog post.

Next: Shawna and Hali . . . in Marin County? Alas, no year indicated.

Shawna & Hali - Marin County  

Twin Peaks - 1989

Twin Peaks - San Francisco  1989

Last 1989 photo post, for now. Discovered the image when I was scanning the 1989 backpack photos. Thought I should put it up, given the recent July, 2025 Twin Peaks posts.

[Full Disclosure: I replaced the sky using a relatively new Photoshop feature. The skies in many (actually, most) of the 35mm film negatives are pretty messed up with grain, scratches, dust and whatever. So I've been trying out the replacement idea. We'll see.]

Devils Postpile - 1989

Devils Postpile - Sierra Nevada  1989

Postpile Meadow - Sierra Nevada  1989

I'm guessing these were taken on the way out after the backpack. I've revisited this area several times since then . . . check out two photos taken in 2014. 

Like I said, the film I was using was Kodak's Panatomic-X, a very fine grain 35mm film. Not sure about the camera though. I suspect that it was a Minolta SLR that I had purchased for its autofocus feature.

Clyde Minaret / Cecile Lake - 1989

Clyde Minaret - Sierra Nevada  1989

Cecile Lake - Sierra Nevada  1989

For the main event of the trip Kay, Laura and I hiked up to  Cecile Lake at the base of the Clyde Minaret, passing by Lake Ediza and Iceberg Lake. 

Trail Details (2) - 1989

Pine Trees, Granite - Sierra Nevada  1989

Trees, Fallen & Standing - Sierra Nevada  1989

At some point I'll go through the 1989 images to see if any of them should be printed.

Trail Details (1) - 1989

Pine Trunk, Branches - Sierra Nevada  1989

Granite Wall - Sierra Nevada  1989

The trail to Lake Ediza had lots of interesting visual details!

Monday Cat Blogging - 1989

Cat - San Francisco  1989

Cat - San Francisco  1989

No animal photos taken during the 1989 backpack, alas. I'm pretty sure that I saw this creature in San Francisco, possibly in Golden  Gate Park.

Ritter, Banner (Campsite View) - 1989

Sunset, Mt. Ritter, Banner Peak, Shadow Creek - Sierra Nevada  1989

1989: Kay found an excellent campsite, dry, up and away from Shadow Creek, and overlooking the famous Rain Trip Meadow. Nice location for sunset photos!

Also could be used for early morning alpenglow photos. Mike returned to the same area in 2010 to get the image below of Ritter and Banner illuminated by the rising sun.

Sunrise, Mt. Ritter, Banner Peak, Shadow Creek - Sierra Nevada  2010

Sierra Plants - 1989

False Hellebore - Sierra Nevada  1989

Ranger's Buttons - Sierra Nevada  1989

Plants seen during the backpack. Are those Ranger's Buttons? Maybe.

False Hellebore! A favorite subject of Edward Weston's and me. Below, a 2007 image taken on the Kings River.

False Hellebore, Kings River - Sierra Nevada  2007

Storm Clouds - 1989

Granite, Mountains - Sierra Nevada  1989

Storm Clouds - Sierra Nevada  1989

All backpacking photos taken using 35mm film (Panatomic-X) developed using fine grain developer. Negatives are slightly "flat." Turns out there's a limit as to how much one can boost the contrast using Photoshop.

Shadow Lake - 1989

Shadow Lake, Storm Clouds - Sierra Nevada  1989

Shadow Lake, Rain - Sierra Nevada  1989

The storm didn't last that long. Just long enough for me to get some photos of some threatening clouds and rain on the lake.

I last visited Shadow Lake in 2019.

Fellow Backpackers - 1989

Kay and Laura, Lake Ediza - Sierra Nevada  1989

Laura, Kay, Hail - Sierra Nevada  1989

My brother Joe had been scheduled to go on the trip, but had to back out due to his old foot injury flaring up. That left his wife Kay, her friend Laura and myself as the remaining backpackers.

We left El Portal, drove through Yosemite and then down highway 395 to Mammoth Lakes. We started hiking at the Agnew Meadows trailhead and had reached Shadow Lake when one of those Sierra cloudburst storm thingies occurred. 

So, this was the pre-digital era: there are gaps in the timeline where there's no photo documentation. No photos in El Portal, the drive through Yosemite and so on. Oh well. 

Sierra Nevada Backpack - 1989

Granite, Minarets - Sierra Nevada  1989

Pines, Granite, Sky - Sierra Nevada  1989

In the olden times I had to be very selective in choosing what negatives to print. The whole process was very time-consuming, so a lot of images never really got looked at. This was the case with the photos that I took during a 1989 backpack in the Devils Postpile area: I printed some of the negatives but had to ignore most of the photos. 

Anyway, I recently got out my old 1989 negatives - still perfectly usable - and, using my Epson V700 flatbed scanner, tried to scan more images than I could have printed in 1989.

Shawna's Birthday!

Shawna on Couch (Fairfax) - Marin County  1982

Wow!

Seminary Buildings (1984)

Seminary Exterior (San Anselmo) - Marin County  1984

Seminary Exterior, Clouds (San Anselmo) - Marin County  1984

Most likely taken with a Mamiya twin-lens reflex camera, using 120 roll film.