It's been several years since we've done a snow trip to the Sierras, so we decided to return to June Lake Villager this year. We had two great trips here in 2001 and 2002, so we had high hopes of lots of snow and great photos when I made the reservations. Those hopes were quickly dashed when we arrived. There was a little snow on the higher peaks, but there were open water areas on June Lake. By the time we left, most of June Lake was ice-free. We had beautiful clear, warm days, but we were here for snow images.
Our friends Don and Pat joined us for the week, which made up for the disappointment of having so little snow. We had a very enjoyable week, but it wasn't a very good photographic week.
We've been looking forward to BBQ at the Copper Kettle for weeks. They have the best BBQ anywhere, so this was a major thing for us. The "Closed on Monday" sign on the door should have been a hint of how our photography was going to go this week. We continued north to Bishop to go to a BBQ place we'd enjoyed in the past. It was closed permanently. We were NOT off to a good start. We found a third BBQ place in Bishop, but it was a poor replacement for Copper Kettle.
We drove up to Oh Ridge to shoot sunset over June Lake, but it was a complete dud. The light was absolutely flat. We decided to make a run to Mono Lake to see if we could catch moonrise over the lake. We barely had time to walk out to the lake's edge when the moon peeked over the volcanic ridge to the east. The best time to shoot moonrise was the previous night, but we managed to get a few decent images before it got too dark.
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We finished our disappointing meals for the day with dinner at Nicely's. We've been eating there on trips for 20 years, but today was not our day. All our meals were fair at best. I think we'll have to stick to breakfast or lunch there in the future.
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