Why Mineral King?

I grew up hearing my mother’s fond memories of many childhood family vacations out to Mineral King. They stopped going because Disney planned to turn it into a resort back in the 60’s. Gratefully development fell through, and it’s now part of Sequoia National Park. I was always curious to check it out, but the timing never quite worked out to visit this secluded part of the Sierra Nevada.

Why Little Five Lakes?

Like Mineral King, I had heard many great stories about this little pocket of the High Sierra from friends and family. And again it was on my list of places I wanted to go for a long time, but the timing just never worked out. I did come close a couple of times, first while trekking the High Sierra Trail 16 years earlier, and a second time in 2020, we planned a trip to the area but had to cancel due to fire in the region.

The Trip

This part of the Sequoia National Park is beautiful, but it’s not for those looking for an easy entrance into the High Sierra. Over the four-day 29-mile trip our total ascent was 10,437 feet of elevation and another 10,428 of descent. Even our first day in Mineral King felt like anything you visit required either a climb or a descent. Little Five Lakes lived up to all the talk I had heard, I only wished we could have spent more time there, or at the neighboring Big Five Lakes. I was also pleasantly surprised by Lost Valley, our last stop on the trip, which personally I feared was going to be little more of a ravine before we climbed up Sawtooth Pass. Below you can see it was a nice pristine meadow to rest in before our final ascent of the trip.

Final Reflections

Overall a trip I thoroughly enjoyed. It felt so good to do a physically challenging trip again. If I were to do this again I would definitely train more to prep for all the climbs and descents. I thought I was ready for them, but the high altitude really took the wind out of me on this trip.

I hope you enjoyed this trip report.If you’d like to see the full trip gallery click on this link here. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the trip or the photos.

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Our early morning meet-up at the Sandstone Peak parking lot was a visual treat; the morning fog was hugging the base of the mountains, as pictured above. After our meet-up, we drove down to the trailhead just off of PCH, and we savored the cool, misty start to our hike through the beautiful Sycamore Canyon trail and beach.

As we climbed out of Sycamore Canyon and clearing the clouds and fog we look over Santa Monica Mountain range on the Backbone Trail, and saw some lingering wild flowers. The drastic change from wet and gloomy to dry and sunny made you question if we were still near the beach. It was a great refresher trip remembering both the beauty of the mountains as well as the physical memory of climbing with pack.

You can see the full gallery from my trip here. And again stay tuned for my trip report from my backpack to Little Five Lakes.

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Layers Upon Layers

One thing I was eager to experience on this trip was being amongst the many layers of the Canyonlands region for sunrise and sunset, watching the changing light illuminate the landscape. On our second morning, we quickly lost the dramatic light as the clouds soon obscured the rising sun. That said, I was quite taken by this scene in the flat, even morning light, and it is one of my favorites from this year. But the view was still exquisite, as you can see in the image below.

Woodgrain

Our third night in Utah, we camped next to a fallen cottonwood tree. In the waning light of blue hour, I quickly set up my tripod and camera to get some detail photos. The varying textures and grains made it a treasure trove subject. This particular composition was a focus stack of nine shots.

Mudcracks

Five days before our trip to Utah, the region got some rain, and we got to see the beautiful after-effects. Mudflows and cracks in the washes were abundant, like the one pictured above. One serendipity I discovered while processing this image was faint animal tracks, which added a little extra detail to the composition. You can see more mudcrack images in the full gallery.

I hope you enjoyed these highlights from the trip. It was one for the memory books. If you’d like to see the full gallery click here.

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The photo is also the March image of my 2026 Photo Calendar. And if you’d like to see more of my work from Death Valley, you can visit my gallery here.

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If you want to see more from my Detail/Texture gallery on my site.

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Sea Anemone

I love exploring tide pools. You never know what you might discover. This particular anemone I stumbled across amongst some of the most jagged crags at the beach. It was in such a tight spot that I couldn’t squeeze my tripod in to take the picture. So I had to crank up my camera’s ISO, crouched down, and precariously straddled the crags on either side of it and try to hold really still while I took the shot. I was so thankful that Adobe’s noise reduction tools were able to clean up all the noise from the high ISO.

This image is also the January image of my 2026 Photo Calendar, which you can purchase here.

Seaweed at Golden Hour

Last light of the day on this crop of washed-up seaweed made it really glow. Literally 10 minutes later, that glorious sheen was gone. I was so grateful to be there for that fleeting moment, wandering back from my beach explorations. Easily one of my favorite images this year.

Like the image above, ‘Seaweed at Golden Hour’ is the July image of my 2026 Photo Calendar, which you can purchase here.

Seaweed in Tide Pool

Many times when I explore the local tide pools, I forget to break out my circular polarizer filter. I was so grateful I didn’t for this one. It was able to remove the surface glare on the water and see all that was going on below the surface. And one other fun fact about this image is that it sort of doubles as a self-portrait. That red glow throughout the photo is my red shirt, which I was wearing, reflecting off the water. When I noticed it in the photo, I tried moving out enough so you couldn’t see me, but it just didn’t have the glow that this version did.

I hope you enjoyed these photos. Which was your favorite? If you like to see more of my work from the beach, visit this gallery here.

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